Here is a story that I recently read about. There was a certain main who lived in South Vietnam. One of the things he did for a living was taxidermy. He was fairly good at it and had a good reputation. He lived in a small village on the edge of a large property owned by a French colonist. The Frenchman made a lot of money with his rubber plantation and was fairly affluent. He loved to host lavish parties at his large mansion with his Asian wife, and was really popular with his European friends who came to visit him on the plantation. The Frenchman was also a cruel man and his cruelty would eventually be his undoing.
One day he and his friends decided to go hunting in the jungle near the estate. The Frenchman was used to fox hunting in his native country but since coming to Vietnam he became enamored with the idea of bagging a tiger. There were rumors of a tiger living in the area and the hunter decided to see if the rumors were true. He gathered his friends and his dogs and hired some local Vietnamese as beaters and they set off to the deep jungle in search of the tiger. It wasn’t long until they found one.
It was a young tiger and not very wise and it was soon surrounded and flushed out by the beaters. In their haste to be the one to bag the tiger, all of the men shot at the same time and the Tiger went down in a hail of gunfire. It was anything but a clean kill and it was actually rather an embarrassment for the Frenchman. The carcass of the tiger was riddled with bullets and it wasn’t even a very large tiger and the hunter feared it would not make a good trophy. Regardless, he decided to do his best to make a rug out of the pelt and so he brought it to his neighbor, the Vietnamese taxidermist.
The taxidermist saw the sorry state of the carcass and admonished the Frenchman and his friends for their clumsiness. This must of stung the Frenchman because he remembered it and being the narcissist that he was, he would use the slight in the future as an excuse for revenge. Never the less the hunter offered to pay the taxidermist a lot of money if he would try to make a passable trophy out of the pelt. The taxidermist agreed to do his best.
After a certain amount of time, the Frenchman had all but forgotten about the tiger, the taxidermist sent word to the hunter that the work was done and that he could come and collect it at any time. The son of the taxidermist was the messanger. The hunter agreed that he would come and inspect the work and make his payment.
Despite the immense damage done, the taxidermist, through skill and persistence, was able to make an elegant and dramatic looking trophy out of the small tiger. Anyone who was honest would certainly have remarked on the skill and ability of the taxidermist and appreciated the value of his work. But as was said, the hunter was a cruel man and was still suffering by the minor slight the taxidermist had given him in front of his friends that had embarrassed him greatly. He refused to pay the taxidermist and walked away from the project. The taxidermist was extremely upset. He had after all, performed a minor miracle with the tiger and had put a lot of work into it. He wanted the money he was owed, he did not work for free. He took the hunter to court and sued him for the money he was owed. This was another embarrassment for the Frenchman who could tolerate the businessman no more. He paid off the judge to have the case thrown out. He then used his considerable power and money to bring the man to trial on trumped up charges. He had the taxidermist thrown in prison and arranged to have him killed. The man’s family was devastated. Without the man of the house, the family lost everything and had to depend on friends and family for support and livelihood.
Now the oldest son, who was a teenager at the time, had worked with his father and had been the messenger who had visited the plantation to inform the hunter that the tiger was complete. He saw the vanity and lifestyle of the foreigner in his own country and he hated him deeply for what the man had done to his father. Now the taxidermist had a boning knife that was very sharp that he had used to during his work. The boy had watched his father work and had helped him often. Anger and the need for revenge siezed the boy’s heart and he took up the knife and went to stalk the Frenchman at his own plantation.
Now the Frenchman had a garden on his estate and he loved to sit outside on warm evenings and drink wine. The boy waited in the woods near the house for the man to emerge from the plantation house and when he did, the boy rushed in and killed him with the knife, stabbing him over and over with the knife. He made the hunter looked like the wretched tiger the hunter and his friends had killed, mangled and covered in blood. Then the boy fled the village and disappeared. It is rumored that the man’s hatred for the French and for all colonialists caused him to join the North Vietnamese communists so he could continue to kill what he perceived as his nation’s enemies, first the French, and then the Americans afterwards.
The message of this story is clear. Every man has a tiger in his heart. A wise man would refrain from libeling another and attempting to ruin his reputation and his life for fear of awakening the tiger within.
An interesting philosophical question has been raised in the debates about how to handle Covid. There are at least two different schools of thought represented by the different candidates for President of the United States and I thought I would take on that argument here. The question is, should we obey the scientists as VP Joe Biden says in order to rid ourselves of the pandemic or should we not?
Joe says that we should trust the scientist because they are the experts who know what is best for us? But do they? Are they the only experts that have anything to say about this situation? Let’s take a look. They have the knowledge to understand disease and how it is spread, and ways we can use to combat the virus, i.e. masks, social distancing, lockdowns, and the different treatment options like a vaccine and other drugs and convalescent plasma. But there is more at stake here than just survival from the disease, there are other terrible things possible because of lockdown and its effects to consider. Remember that science is only one discipline in a panoply of disciplines that aid us in discovering ultimate truth. They are like concentric circles that overlap; science, philosophy, and religion and in the overlapping area in the middle we find the truth. Some would say that truth is the seat of a three-legged chair and the legs that support it are science, philosophy, and religion. If you try to make an argument for the discovery of truth using only one support, you get a poorly supported argument. If you use two supports, that is better, but using all three is the best. I would argue that science only tells us what is possible, it does not tell us what to do with that knowledge. Science only gives options. Here are some examples of what I mean.
2020 has been a hard year and I have to admit it has caused me to do some soul-searching. It has been hard for myself, my family and indeed the whole world. Everyone has been affected. I’ve done some reading that has clarified some things for me, and admittedly, some of it is very dark. Amongst the readings I have done I picked up a copy of Michael Cholbi’s book called Suicide: The Philosophical Dimensions. Cholbi is a philosopher and in the book, he makes some very cogent arguments for and against the moral permissibility or impermissibility of suicide. Indeed, those are two of the chapter titles. Here is the impetus of why I began reading this book.
A friend of mine told me the following story. She was at home one day doing her normal routine when her teenaged son bounced out of the upstairs bedroom and came downstairs, quickly donning his jacket and preparing to go outside. He was visibly shaken and upset. His mother asked him where he was going. The boy quickly explained that a boy he knew at school, not a close friend but someone he had contact with had been on social media the moment before and had posted a suicide note there. The boy knew that his classmate lived only three blocks away and he was determined to go and try to stop him. He ran out of the house without another word and the mother was unable to stop him.
The story ends about as well as you would expect it would, but thankfully not as bad as it could have been. The troubled classmate hit send on his social media and immediately put a gun to his head, pulling the trigger. He died instantly. Meanwhile, a person who barely knew him, but who cared for him nonetheless was running full blast nonstop for over three blocks in an effort to save his life. There wasn’t even an option in this boy’s mind, but he had to act. He was not acting rationally, his ethical and moral upbringing informed him that suicide was wrong, and he was going to stop it and save this boy’s life if possible. I like this kid. I can’t imagine what he experienced when he ran up to the upstairs bedroom and found his friend lying there in a pool of his own blood. Meanwhile, a distraught mother waits, wondering if she will ever see her son again. Personally, I am glad the boy did not arrive in time to save his classmate. Suicidal people often react violently and irrationally and have murdered people attempting to save them. While the distraught boy’s suicide was undesirable, the thought that a stranger could have died trying to stop it is also equally unacceptable. That thought had not entered the rescuer’s mind, but I am sure that it was top front of his mother’s mind and heart.
Cholbi in his book argues that a suicidal person can be rational, but not all suicidal people are. In fact, most are not. For example: A middle-aged woman is facing a health crisis that will certainly end her life. Therapy can extend her life but the pain and suffering she is told will be almost unbearable. She has decided to forgo therapy, and the immense cost and burden it would cause to herself and her family and decides to end her life. She is rational. She is mature. She knows full well the ethical and moral outcomes to the choice before her and she has made that choice. She doesn’t want to die, but she will. The only question is, how? With immense pain and a hospital bill her family can’t pay. Or she can do it her way and avoid both. She has made her choice, suicide.
But, before she can act, her doctor has intervened. She has become institutionalized in the hospital against her will, by the doctor, and forced to do painful chemotherapy that will extend the time period of her life but greatly diminished the quality of her life. Nothing has changed, the woman is still going to die, but now she will die in a way not of her own choosing. The doctor meanwhile who has taken an oath to do no harm has instead harmed his patient amazingly because he has violated her free will. Her end of life wishes have been usurped by an outsider who is acting unnecessarily paternalistic. The patient’s rights have been violated and she has been damaged.
Cholbi argues that most suicidal people are not rational and have not thought their actions through at all. Instead, their depression is like a valley where their damaged emotional state obscures any vision of a time and place where they can be happy in the future. Intervention for a suicidal child he argues who is irrational and overly emotional may be allowed because it isn’t overly paternalistic and does not interfere with the child’s free will. He is after all an irrational child and it is ok for adults in this case who have more experience to interfere and disrupt the child’s plans to end his own life. It is ok, for a doctor, nurse, social worker, police officer to interfere. Is it right for another child to do so? Is it even safe? Arguably not since this other child could very well have been occupying a slab in the morgue next to his classmate. While this young man will no doubt suffer extreme trauma from seeing his classmate dead, at least he is not dead as well, for which I am enormously grateful.
In a very real sense, science alone can not touch either of these cases, that of the suicidal boy or the woman with the brain tumor. It has nothing to say, the book is closed. Without the vision of philosophy and perhaps religion, we cannot have a discussion about either case.
That’s how it is with Covid!
President Trump is surrounded by experts of many disciplines, among those great scientists and doctors who are experts in disease. He also has other politicians around him, constitutional lawyers, philosophers, religious people and of course economists. The economists make the argument that a shut down could prevent the spread of the virus as the scientists claim, but it would kill the economy which would have a devastating result probably worse than the disease. Covid seems to kill less than one percent of those it infects. Is it worth the economic devastation to prevent the spread of this disease? Millions of people would be out of work. The aspirations of small business entrepreneurs would be irrevocably destroyed. The economic destruction left in the wake of a long shutdown would be unfathomable. At the end of it, the government would have another choice to make. Should it intervene on behalf of businesspeople and make them whole, using the national treasury to do it? Arguably it would be too costly to help everyone and the government would have to decide what businesses to help and which ones would go without aid. The government would choose the winners and the losers. Is that moral or ethical? Shut up scientists, you have nothing to say.
Are shutdowns even legal? That is a question for the lawyers not the scientists. A government is morally obligated to protect the health and safety of its citizens, but does it have the right to cause financial harm in an effort to stop a disease that kills less than one percent of the people it infects? Shut up scientists, you have nothing to say.
What about the number of suicides that would result from such a shut down as people are confined to their homes with no work and no way to earn a living for themselves and their families? Left with the devastating reality of a shutdown, many will no doubt choose to end their own lives. So, in preventing a shutdown, Donald Trump is intervening in thousands of potential suicides, saving the lives of many. Shut up scientists, you have nothing to say.
Does the government have the right to shut down churches and places of religion to prevent the spread of a disease? Arguably, that is not constitutional, and the churches and people who attend services are rightfully angry at the prospect of being prevented to worship their God in the manner of their own choosing. Isn’t emotional and spiritual well being just as important as physical health? Again, science has nothing to say. Shut up.
You see the point I am making by now; I am sure. President Donald J. Trump is surrounded by experts of multiple disciplines, including scientists and doctors. He has been personally impacted by the virus. But the scientists and doctors don’t get the last say, there are other experts at the table who have input, and they should be there to advise the president. Joe Biden says he would banish all of the experts other than the ones with medical and science degrees. But doctors deal with moral and ethical decisions all the time. They don’t rely only on science to base their decisions on how to treat a patient. They have to deal with the wishes of the patient and their family members as well.
Imagine this scenario. An elderly female patient is dying. The code team arrives at her room and begins resuscitation efforts to include intubation, that is putting a breathing tube down their throat, and begin chest compressions and wire her in to an AED to attempt to restart her heart. She is not breathing, and she has no pulse. Nurses arrive that will begin a lifesaving blood transfusion and other nurses at the bedside will begin infusing medications meant to try to resuscitate the patient. Every effort is being made to save the patient.
But there is a problem. The patient is DNR/DNI! She has expressed her wishes to the doctors and nurses in writing. They are in her chart. She has a wristband on her arm that explicitly states those wishes, DO NOT INTUBATE, DO NOT RESUSCITATE! The patient’s husband is outside the room, wondering what is going on. He sees the blood nurse go into the room to hang the blood. He knows his wife would not have wanted a blood transfusion. He timidly asks the blood nurse to stop. She has a choice to make. She raises the question to the doctor in charge of the code. The husband is outside, she informs him, and he doesn’t want his wife to get any blood. She points out that the patient is DNR/DNI. Legally and morally the code chief should end the resuscitation efforts, but he doesn’t do it. Instead he gives the nurse an explicit order: hang that unit. Now the ball is back in the nurse’s corner. Do I or do I not hang this blood?! The nurse values her job, she hangs the blood as the doctor wishes knowing that she has violated the wishes of the patient and the patient’s family member.
The patient dies anyway. The blood products and all the medication and other interventions have been wasted on a patient who didn’t want it. And who eats the cost of that intervention? The patient’s family!
This is the kind of ethical, moral and philosophical scenario that happens in hospitals all the time. Nothing happens in a vacuum. There is more to the situation than just pure science.
Science has its uses, obviously, but I would argue that pure science alone is virtually silent on most of the ethical and moral questions facing society today, including what we do about Covid! . Without philosophy and religion, science is totally worthless!
I’m going to touch on one more scenario that will blow your mind. The environmentalists often argue that the planet is overpopulated and that our huge carbon footprint is harming the planet through global warming. We could be facing an irreparable crisis and the only cure would be to reduce the carbon footprint.That carbon footprint would be a lot lower if the population of humans that cause global warming could be reduced somehow. Having this firmly in mind, why not let the virus take its course and eliminate the weakest people from the planet, those susceptible to the virus due to pre-existing conditions?
There are a number of problems with this argument and it should be noted that I am not advocating for any one course of action. I’m simply pointing out the moral and philosophical implications. If the virus only effects less than one percent of the population, the absence of those people will not touch global warming in the slightest. I only make this argument to illustrate the problem. Should we let people die to save the planet? Should we kill people to save the planet? The philosophers and clergy would no doubt have something to say about that. What would pure science have to say about it? Crickets! Pure science is of virtually no help in this matter when philosophy and religion are absent.
We elected Donald J. Trump to do a job. He has a lot on his plate. He will make decisions based on advice but also on his own moral and ethical worldview. Those decisions may not be the same as the choices you would make. If Joe Biden or anyone else were in his position, they would be making moral and ethical decisions for all of us based on their own worldview, and I can guarantee they would not wholly be based on science alone. That is a fallacious argument.
Big government leftists Win When Businesses Cannot Operate Without Government Sanction
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz
By Jeremy Griffith
The American Millennium
Covid-19 or Corona Virus or whatever you want to call it must be the Global Socialists wet dream, because, if you think about it, planned or not, orchestrated or not, the end result is in their favor. No business worldwide can operate without government sanction.
You can put forth all of the conspiracy theories you want.
Dr. Fauci funded Wuhan Lab which “created” a deadly virus which happened to
just escape the lab and decimate millions of people around the world. Whatever.
The virus may not have killed as many as the models predicted it would, but the
fear it created did kill something else: small business. Now the global
socialists are using that fear, and the force of government in the form of
armed police officers, to shut down businesses that dare operate without
government sanction.
Take Minnesota as an example. A candy store owned by a friend of the Governor Tim Waz is called “essential” and can operate despite government shutdown of virtually all other businesses. The Attorney General Keith Ellison sues a bar that dares to open its doors without sanction. In Colorado and elsewhere it’s much the same. My brother lives in Pueblo and he’s told me that a certain restaurant and bar in Rifle, Colorado was closed because the owner is a personal nemesis of the Governor of that state.
So, Walmart and Target can remain open, but not a bar and grill in Rifle, Colorado. Barbers, hairdressers, Churches, all closed, but a Minnesota candy seller, liquor stores, pot sellers, abortion clinics, all open. If you just open your eyes you can see the trend, only the businesses approved by socialist planners are opening and those the globalists sneer at, well, they can shrivel up and die for all they care. It’s not a very funny joke. The entrepreneur has been trampled under the socialist’s boot and they are drunk with the power of it. Instead of Ayn Rand’s heroes of Atlas Shrugged where the business leaders willingly withdraw themselves in protest and shut down the global economic engine in protest, the world has become more like her early dystopian work Anthem where the hero buries himself underground out of sight of his government masters and experiments with electricity in secret. That is the entrepreneur today, crushed underfoot by fascists, they plot in secret on how they can resist this overreach of government and plan to open. Meanwhile, we are bombarded with fear propaganda. We could be the ones killed at random by this awful disease with a less than 1 percent fatality rate.
Meanwhile, a globalist who made his money in computers who delved into education even though he has no education expertise now seeks to tell us what is good for our health. Failed common core guru Bill Gates wants to create a vaccine and force us all to take it. Without proof of vaccination, we are not allowed to operate in normal society. I say “Jump in the lake, Bill! We didn’t buy your bill of goods before with common core, we are not taking your poison pill now!” You couldn’t even keep viruses out of Windows, Bill. How are you going to protect us from a biological disease?!
I’m not saying that this was a plan to get Trump. I don’t
think the left is that sophisticated. But they know how to make use of a crisis
and it has worked fabulously well, in their eyes. They’ve shown their true
colors again and people should pay attention. As red states begin to slowly open
amidst the pandemic, watch what happens in so-called blue and purple states like
Minnesota and Colorado. Will those restrictions ease up or will Tim Walz and
people like him kick the can down the road? In the new normal while essential
workers labor under the burden of the pandemic, nonessentials stay at home and
comfortably earn a paycheck without lifting a finger, thanks to the government.
It isn’t fair, of course, but that’s the way the socialists want it. They want
you to be dependent on them, not independent and free to make your own choices.
Nothing like a good plague to bring the peasants back in line. And when the
fear of corona slips away from recent memory and people start going out again,
watch out for the second wave of fear as corona 2021 arrives.
I won’t even talk about election fraud and manipulation as voters are forced away from reporting to the polls in person and are instead required to mail in their ballots with the faith (hope) that the people in charge will count their votes properly. Maybe? You can’t even properly count the covid dead, how can you be trusted with our votes. Oh, the election is over, but we have another couple thousand votes in the trunk of this car! What are we going to do! Recount!
It’s fun to watch the parade of resistance drive and walk past the governor’s mansions or the state houses with their protest signs, but really, when do the arrests start to happen? I mean, come on? When your presence in large groups is a national security risk, shouldn’t you be put in jail?! We’ll just let this rapist out because he might get the corona and looky here, there’s a spot for you in his unwashed cell. That was convenient!
I don’t like what this country is becoming in the midst of this coronavirus. I feel bad about the people who have died, but really, aren’t their more lethal killers out there? The flu kills thousands of people each year and there is a vaccine! It doesn’t have the power to kill an economy. What about cars? Take those away, we need mass transit to move an economy. Much more safe, oh wait? Is it really? Trains and busses are a petri dish of disease, but the socialist left doesn’t seem to mind. They hate your cars and your freedom much more.
At the end of the day I think we need a new reformation, a new revolution, a new paradigm, not one with guns and civil wars but with quiet and consistent resistance to the globalists push at mass statist control. Good people have to push back against the machine and if we stand together, we can win. American ingenuity has defeated diseases before. I’m not worried about the demise of the corona. It will come soon enough with a new vaccine or new treatments. I’m worried whether or not we can inoculate ourselves against the elites who use fear as a weapon to bring us to heel and kill our dreams and our freedom.
Martial artist and actor Chan explores the challenges of race relations in hilarious fashion in the movie “Rush Hour”.
In my novel about the Iraq war, LSA Adder, I use the word “nigger” on two occasions in the conversations of two different characters. Why did I do this? Am I a racist? The short answer is: no, I don’t think so, but the reader will have to decide.
I used this kind of controversial language for a reason and I’ll explain that right now. You see, as a white, middle-class person writing a novel for the first time I struggled with the problem of how to discuss the real problem of racism in this country and around the world. I thought to myself, how should I do this? Should I have a character break the fourth wall and go off on a diatribe about how racism exists and it’s terribly wrong? I decided ultimately not to handle it this way and just let the characters use the word in their everyday language as part of the narrative of the story and allow the other characters to react to what was being said. I wanted to create some characters with some questionable moral standings and allow the reader to see those negative aspects of the character for themselves. If you are a minority, how does it make you feel when you hear that word? White people definitely should not use it in everyday conversation, but should black people use it? Blacks definitely use the N-word a lot, in their conversations with each other, in their music and media, all over the place. They probably shouldn’t but they do.
In one of my favorite movies, Asian martial artist and actor Jackie Chan is in a bar in a black neighborhood. A black man approaches a black bartender and addresses him in a greeting. He says, “What’s up, my nigga!” Does the bartender act with outrage? No, they are friends and the bartender addresses the customer in like manner, saying, “What’s up, my nigga!” right back.
“What’s up, my nigga?!” -Jackie Chan, Rush Hour
Jackie’s character sees this behavior, not knowing the controversy of the word. He wants to fit in, so he goes to the bar, sits on the stool and addresses the bartender. “What’s up, my nigga!” he says, smiling broadly. Of course, you know what happens next. It’s a Jackie Chan movie. Jackie commits a social faux pax and immediately reaps the consequences. Everyone in the bar is outraged at the behavior of the outsider while the same behavior committed by insiders was totally considered acceptable. There is a big bar fight and of course, Jackie Chan wins the fight, with hilarious and entertaining effect.
Ultimately the N-word is just that, a word. Use it, don’t use it. Whatever. Famous author Mark Twain used the controversial word hundreds of times in classic novel Huckleberry Finn. Did he mean to cause an emotional response from the readers with the repeated use of this word, or was he just trying to be accurate with the word usage and language of the time? I’ve often wondered. I’m still not sure. But it’s interesting that now people want to go back and edit those offensive words out of the classic or ban the book altogether. Should people be able to edit this classic novel? Or, better yet, instead of burning books maybe we should talk about them and the context in which they were written?
But there are other ways that we show disrespect to each other, soft styles of racism and discrimination that are passive-aggressive in nature, things we might not notice overtly but are just as powerful and just as hurtful. It doesn’t have to deal with just racial differences either. Often people are disrespected for their social class, background, age, sex, whatever excuse a person has to demean another person. Doctors disrespect nurses, nurses disrespect house keeping, or other allied health, certain patients get gold star treatment, while others are largely ignored and neglected. Executives don’t respect their employees and business people disrespect tradesmen, it goes on and one. Why does this happen?
Here is a social problem for you regarding respect. You are a hospital worker getting people ready for a test. You have two patients in two different bays. Your job is to get both patients ready to go through their test with the utmost safety. Who gets the most attention and care? In one bay you have an elderly white woman from a nursing home. She’s confused, the hospital is a big place and she came to her appointment late. Parking was a problem and she has trouble getting around. Her insurance provider is medicare. She’s very poor.
In the other bay, you have an upper-class man. He’s a business executive from a major corporation. He’s a big deal. With him is a man appointed by the hospital to act as a sort of medical concierge. He has his phone out and his job is to help that wealthy patient through the medical testing process with the fewest problems possible, deconflicting his schedule so the visit goes smooth from beginning to end.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. We should treat both patient’s equally, right? But we don’t do we? If we do, then why does one have a special assistant to make the process go smooth, and the other doesn’t? Why?
Does it change the scenario for you if I told you that grandma was white and the executive was an African-American gentleman?!
We disrespect people for their education level too or at least the perception of it. Here’s an example I read about. There was a young man who was extremely smart. He graduated from high school very early. He wanted to go to college right away too, he had a thirst for knowledge. But he was not allowed to go because he was perceived to be too young and immature to fit in with his school mates. He eventually did go to university and graduated extremely young with many advanced degrees, in math as it happens. He went on to become one of the youngest tenured professors ever in mathematics at a major university. The press hounded him endlessly because he was such an enigma. He was featured prominently in magazines and newspapers. Everyone was impressed with the intelligence of this young professor.
Very soon however the young man resigned his job and promptly disappeared. It was a mystery for many years why he quit his job and vanished so suddenly, without an apparent reason why. Many years later the man was found by another reporter who went through great lengths to locate him. The former math genius was working as a low paid janitor at a hospital. The reporter asked him why he left his high visibility job and accepted an obscure job with such low pay and recognition. The genius replied that he couldn’t deal with the stress. He just wanted to be left alone. So in a big hospital with all sorts of administrators, doctors, nurses, and other professionals, the smartest person in the building was the janitor.
The other day I was watching a movie with my wife. It was about the Vietnam War. My wife is Asian, emigrating to the US from the Philippines about eleven years ago. In the movie one of the character’s used a word she had never heard before and she turned to me and asked me what it meant. Gook. My beautiful Filipino wife turned to me with a confused look on her face and asked me in the middle of a movie what a gook was, and I had to pause the movie and explain it to her. How embarrassing.
My wife is probably subjected to racism and discrimination all the time and probably doesn’t understand that or doesn’t even recognize it for what it is. She’s a member of a special class of American Citizens. She is what is known in sociology as a “model minority”. The definition of which is that she being Asian is in a class of people worldwide who are often subjected to racism and discrimination but don’t know it or don’t respond to it. They sidestep it, they ignore it, they cut people out of their lives who disrespect them, and they live their lives. They don’t get too excited and worn out by people who mistreat them, they just make a note of it and move on. I hear about this from my wife all the time. She’ll tell me about something that happened to her in the middle of the day and she’ll say, “why did they do that? They’re goofy!”
The bottom line is this. We are all subjected to disrespect all the time. We try to chase respect of others as if it is a priceless commodity to be earned. But in the end, it is a futile pursuit. People will respect you, or they won’t. Trying to earn someone’s respect is useless because you’ll never change their mind or worldview and it’s no good trying. I like to put it this way. Respect is based on nothing more than the random opinions of others. I deal with disrespect in this way. Like my wife, I make note of it, sidestep it, and avoid the people who mistreat me.
I had a job interview one time over the phone and I’ll never forget this. I was really excited about this job and thought I had it clinched. I didn’t get the job and it still hurts to remember this incident. I was talking to a senior manager of this organization who I thought was calling to welcome me on board. He instead let me know that the offer was not firm, that he ultimately would decide who to hire and not hire and my fate rested on him and if he wasn’t impressed in that interview, then I wouldn’t get the job. It was evident in the interview that his plan for the job description was vastly different than the one I was applying for and I was ambushed with questions about a job that I wasn’t applying for and was unprepared for. The connection was bad and while giving answers I apparently walked on him as he was speaking. He became very mad at me and started yelling over the phone. “I am the boss, you don’t talk while I’m talking!”
Wow. I was shocked. My wife was listening to the interview because I had the phone on speaker. She was shocked. None of us were impressed with that interview. I was supposed to call back later in the week. The interviewer said he would give me another chance. Whatever. I have had to deal with people like that before at work and I have to tell you, I have no time for it. I do what my wife does when I encounter disrespectful and arrogant people who have a high opinion of themselves; I make note, I sidestep, and I cut people out of my life. No one has time for behavior like that.
Jesus Christ is the penultimate example of this respect issue. Look at His life here on Earth. The Golden Rule is attributed to Him, you know the one: Do unto others as you would have done unto you. Remember you learned this rule in grade school. I did.
Jesus was asked one time by a high priest what the most important religious law was. Jesus answered, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.”
Some bibles translate that last, “love your neighbor AND yourself”!
Jesus was loved and respected by many people of many different walks of life. But He failed to get the love and respect of the one group of people that should have recognized who He was and loved Him the most: the high priests and leaders of the Jewish people of the time. They mocked Him, ridiculed Him, had Him tortured in the cruelest way, and put Him to death. They hated Him because He threatened their order, their true world view. He threatened to rob them of their power and they did not like that at all. Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God and Savior of us all, and yet He was hated and disrespected by people, just like people hate and disrespect us. He taught us how to live and treat one another and He wasn’t afraid to call people out for their bad behavior. For the Pharisees, He had some very colorful names. Vipers, serpents, whited sepulchers. Jesus didn’t mince words, He called it as He saw it.
Be like Jesus and do what He does. Call people out for their bad behavior, sidestep them, and cut them out of your life.
And, love your neighbor and yourself.
Thank you for listening to me rant. If you liked this post, be sure to stay tuned for more and visit the American Millennium blog often. It’s been a while and I plan to write more often now. If you want to get to know me better, visit often and subscribe. Or better yet, visit Amazon.com and pick up one of my books. I’m working on new titles all the time. At present, I’m working on two sequels. The second book in my Paranormal Radio series that started with my book, The House on Spirit Lake, I’m calling “The Fourth Floor”, and a sequel to my sci-fi novel Dance Into Fire that I’m tentatively calling “The Devil in the Dark”. In the future, I also have a sequel to my first novel, LSA Adder. I’m calling that one, “Anaconda”. In that title, the redoubtable CIA operative Chris Lloyd will make his return. All of my titles are available in ebook and in paperback on Amazon.com.
I have traveled all around the world, from Europe to the Middle East, to Southeast Asia and the Philippines. I have noticed one common denominator throughout. Not all people are good. Many indeed have bad intent and victimize the innocent, who have no means of protecting themselves.
Governments around the world tasked with protecting the populations often fail to do so. Oh they talk a lot and they pass laws, but the truth is that their best efforts are often fruitless, especially when it comes to deterring terrorism and crime.
We’ve seen yet another example of what bad men are capable of when in New Zealand a white supremacist loser went into a Muslim Mosque with a gun and started shooting, killing 49 worshipers and injuring 20 plus more. Shocking, but not unexpected. I have to admit I don’t have much sympathy for the Muslims. After all, the practitioners of the Religion of Peace have been a scourge on society my whole lifetime, lashing out at every other culture and religion. They hate Jews, Christians, Buddhists, the Sikhs, and even other Muslims that don’t share their radical view. Indeed, there is not a single set of people more destructive to their world neighbors than the Muslims and while I condemn this senseless violence against these unarmed victims in this case, there is a part of me that can’t get over the sense that they kind of had it coming. I’m really surprised this doesn’t happen more often!
Have we now come to the point in our history where if we want to feel safe from people who hate us that we have to post armed guards outside our schools, businesses, and places of worship? I think that regrettably that is the case. I recently traveled to The Philippines which is the land where my lovely wife Roselle hails from. I traveled all around the country, from Manila in the north to the island of Mindanao in the south. In businesses we visited all over the country, armed guards in sharp white and blue uniforms, armed with sidearms, rifles and shot guns could be seen manning checkpoints in front of those businesses and throughout. They have to do this because of criminals and because of terrorism brought about by native Muslim terrorists, specifically Boca Haron and the Maute group, dangerous offshoots of Isis.
On the island of Mindanao for example, the government of the Philippines over the last few years has been engaged in a Civil War against the Muslims resulting in the destruction of a major metropolitan city of Marawi. There the Muslims were getting a little restless and decided to ambush the police chief there and take over. They decapitated the man and laid his body out in the street. Philippine Strongman Rodrigo Duturte, and Asian version of Bruce Willis in the Movie Death Wish would have none of that and leveled the city, displacing millions of residents, mostly Muslims. When I was there months later, there was still tension in the air. The army and the national police have set up checkpoints all over the country looking for high-value targets, Muslim terrorists, who still want to cause trouble. I was told by my family who were driving me around that in certain places I could not get out of the van because it was not safe for a westerner to be seen in that area that was largely controlled by the Muslims.
Now my wife and I were visiting her family because her brother was getting married. I took out my Philippine phrasebook and attempted to learn as much of the language as I can. We had a great time. At the wedding, I saw a group of soldiers in the hotel, all carrying M4 rifles. It was disconcerting to see soldiers walking around armed and so casual as to be a fact of life to be dealt with. We as Americans have no concept of it here.
A lot of people continue to press on with the notion that disarming is the way to bring about a safer world. If these bad people were disarmed, then law and order will prevail. This is a childish notion brought about by naive people. Criminals and terrorists will never disarm. They will flaunt the laws of western democracy and take advantage where they can. In the meanwhile they stockpile arms already designated as illegal. Remember the assault on the satirical news paper Charlie Hebdo? We saw video of terrorists carrying fully automatic rifles killing police who were unarmed in the streets. I mean imagine the naivete of the French government in the dangerously regressive action of disarming their own police force! How foolish.
Everywhere we see Muslim immigration happening in the west we always see problems. Rape gangs crop up and victimize local women, gangsters destroy property and demand Sharia law, riots and looking are in our newscasts on a daily basis. I see nothing attractive about the Muslim religion at all and I don’t see why anyone would want to import such a culture into their society. It’s utterly barbaric.
I would be equally repulsed if a bunch of fascists or the KKK started marching down the street. And let’s get one thing straight, the Antifa for all their rhetoric, ARE Fascists! They don’t care about your rights, they don’t care about free speech, they don’t care about your right to self defense, they just want a free ride through life provided by the government by the confiscation of your wealth which you worked so hard to collect over a lifetime. They say socialism is the Santa Claus for adults and it’s true. A socialist is said to be a person who wants everything you have except your job. They don’t want to work.
And now they want your guns. How is that going to work? Here in Minnesota, legislators are having hearings to discuss new bills to license and register guns already in circulation and to require universal background checks for all firearms including those for hunting. How is that going to help reduce the crime? Criminals aren’t going to register their weapons. How ridiculous. Sadly this government and this Governor is willing to entertain laws that have lead in every other location they have been tried to confiscation and delegitimization. They are willing to put our law enforcement officers at risk by placing them in the dangerous position of searching houses of gun owners who have not committed crimes. How is that going to go? Red Flag laws are an excuse for any neighbor to complain about their conservative neighbor and have the law enforcement deprive them of their property and their God-given right to self-defense. It’s stupid.
This is going on in a state where election integrity is in question and where districts in Saint Paul and Minneapolis are represented by a female Muslim. This happened because progressive legislators thought it was a good idea to import people whose attitude and culture are vastly different than the norm of most Minnesotans. And we can see the result. Crime is increasing in the Twin Cities and Minnesota has become a recruiting ground for domestic terrorism. Rep. Ilhan Omar’s toxic and anti-semitic comments have gotten her into trouble as she continues to blast western culture. She is blatantly anti-west and anti-Israel and refused to back off or moderate her comments despite pressure from other Democrats. This is where we are heading in the new normal in formerly pleasant Minnesota. He district is said to be the major recruiting ground for people who leave the US to fight for Isis.
Here in Rochester, we have an uptick in crime as well, much of it perpetrated by Muslim men. Here in Minnesota, we are taught to be tolerant of other diverse cultures. I see people on the street and I smile politely. Most people moving here to live and work are nice and want to integrate into our diverse society. I would never question their right to be here. But for one group in particular, there is a dark side that it would be foolish to ignore. A young Somali man was found dead on a back road not far from a popular business area in south Rochester. I sometimes travel roads near there on the way to my brother’s house in rural Simpson. I have to wonder how this man’s brutalized body, shot several times, found it’s way there. Are the murderers who left him there walking among us? Do the cops have any clues that will lead to their capture?
I think most Minnesotans would agree with me that violence is wrong and we condemn the New Zealand mosque killer in the strongest terms. We just wish that Muslims around the world would also forswear any violence for any reason, particularly their violence and hatred for Israel and her people. If they did, our goodwill towards the people who practice the religion of peace would extend a lot further.
I think most Minnesotans would agree with me that violence is wrong and we condemn the New Zealand mosque killer in the strongest terms. We just wish that Muslims around the world would also forswear any violence for any reason, particularly their violence and hatred for Israel and her people. If they did, our goodwill towards the people who practice the religion of peace would extend a lot further. -Jeremy Griffith
I tell you what, registering my guns is the last thought that occurs to me. If anything, I am more motivated to buy more guns and ammo and to get me and my family more training in how to use them. I’m going to an event today to do just that. I bought my wife a gun and I’m going to send her to class so she feels comfortable using it. She doesn’t feel safe at home alone when I’m working nights and I don’t blame her. In her native Philippines, she recalls a time when thugs got on her rented Jeepney and attempted to rob the occupants at knifepoint. She was at the back of the open vehicle and jumped out of the vehicle to avoid being harmed or robbed, and ran all the way to her home. Here in the United States, she studied martial arts, getting her black belt from the prestigious Park Institute. Against one or two attackers, I think she could hold her own, but against 3 or more, I’m not sure. A gun would definitely turn things in her favor and I want her to have every opportunity to protect herself. Why would the government try to take those rights away from her?
They’ve chosen instead to import a group of people who don’t respect our rights or our culture and want to replace it with their own laws and culture. They won’t assimilate, they want to exchange our culture for theirs and I don’t see any reason why we should. Child arranged marriages, female genital mutilation, the public execution of gays, honor killings, the harassment of anyone who doesn’t share their extremist views, with all this going for them, I’m not sure why anyone would want to embrace such people.
These are the people the democrats want to embrace over other Minnesotans who have lived here all their lives. Indeed, they want to take away your rights and give more rights and privileges to people who don’t respect you or yours. I don’t get it. I don’t want it.
I’m going to enroll my wife in a gun safety course and I’m going to be continually vocal in this gun control debate. Gun control for me is hitting what I aim at. We will not comply with a government who wants to take away our rights. We are not Venezuela. We are Americans.
Thank you for all the Minnesota legislators who are pro-gun and have done what you can to fight this dangerous gun grabbing ideology.
A girl in a fancy blue dress competes at the fair as younger girls watch in awe. -photo by Jeremy Griffith
By Jeremy Griffith
The American Millennium
I know a girl who loves horses. It’s fair season and she’s not competing in any of the events. That’s because toxic people have stolen her joy.
This girl, we’ll call her Emily, loves to ride her Arabian horse, Joker! Over the years since she was a little girl, they’ve created a special bond. Until recently, Emily enjoyed showing in the different events at the Olmsted County Fair, and at other events. Her favorite was her participation in a show team, where a bunch of girls performed as a group, doing special moves in synchronization. Think of it as a dance squad for horse and rider. She worked hard and earned a leadership position, she was given the lead, and a whistle, to signal to the other riders the next move to be performed. She was at the top of her game, and her happiness!
But other people couldn’t leave things alone. It wasn’t other girls and their jealous ambitions that unseated her. It was the parents of the other girls, a few parents in particular. You see, certain parents couldn’t stand the fact that their child wasn’t the lead, wasn’t the star. And through toxic jealousy and bullying, they drove Emily out of her slot and out of the club altogether. Stunned into submission, the young girl I know left the club and her friends and now sits at home in a blue funk of depression. Her tears are hidden, even swallowed. Her joy is stolen.
This kind of thing happens more than you realize. Bullying by another child is bad enough. But bullying by an adult towards a child is unacceptable. It should be stomped out and burned with fire, like a spider in a house. It is vile and toxic and should have no place in any sport.
Performing in front of a crowd with your horse can be pure joy, but there is a dark side to the fair! -photo by Jeremy Griffith
Children have dreams, and nothing inspires dreams for a girl than an older girl performing with her horse in front of a crowd. The applause arises from the stands and the adulation is infectious. It’s pure joy. I went to the Olmsted County Fair today and took a few shots of the competitors. Along the railing, young people gathered and watched in awe as the older girls performed. It was magic. As much as I enjoyed that moment, all I could think of is that girl I know sitting at home, disappointed that the sport she loved no longer brings her joy.
I have a message for toxic parents. It’s not about you and your child. You don’t have to kill the dreams of other kids to elevate your own. You are worse than a thief. You are a murderer. You kill dreams.
If you are a parent who participates in the fair, whatever the event, be on the lookout for toxic people and stand up to them. Protect the dreams of all the kids. There is enough happiness and pride for all. Toxic people suck the air out of the room. They should be rooted out and asked to step aside. They don’t belong.
I took a few shots of exhibitors today at the fair. I was impressed by their performances. Whoever wins, I hope they all had a good time, ignorant of any toxicity that may lurk at the fair. The older ones inspire the younger ones, who hope to grow up like them someday. Remember parents and competitors. There is nothing wrong with a white ribbon. The white shows that you participated, and hopefully learned something. The red ribbon says you did better this time and you are learning, but still have room to grow. The blue means you are getting really good and your hard work is paying off. The violet and the purple of Reserve Grand Champion and Grand Champion means that you are at the top of your game. Congratulations. Use your status to teach and inspire other competitors and share your love of the game.
And parents, remember, you can’t buy your child’s happiness by trying to destroy the happiness of others. There is no place for that kind of vile toxicity at the fair!
A competitive show person can inspire the dreams of the young, but the actions of toxic people can kill those dreams just as fast! -photo by Jeremy Griffith
We know the leftist media is biased, but are they blind? That is a question I asked myself again when I attended a play this weekend on my 47th Birthday this past Sunday. My parents took my wife and me to see a Chanhassen production of Newsies.
My parents Len and Kathy treat my wife and me to dinner and a show at Chanhassen. -photo by Jeremy Griffith
Chanhassen Dinner theater is a nice little venue in the City of Chanhassen in the Twin Cities. We’ve gone there many times. My mom Kathy loves the theater and even prodded my brother and I to take part in local theater productions when we were kids. More about the Disney play Newsies in a moment.
But I want to talk about what happened before the play. I was reading a playbill for another theater company in the Twin Cities, the Guthrie, putting on a production called Enemy of the People. We arrived at the play early and as we waited to be seated for dinner, my mom asked me to grab a pile of the pamphlets to see what else was playing. I grabbed a handful of them and handed half of them to mom while I read the others. I came upon the Guthrie playbill containing the ad for Enemy of the People. Curious, I Googled the play on my smartphone, and I was shocked at what I found.
Newsies Stop the World! Goofing off at Chanhassen Dinner Theater.
A New York Times article no less popped up on my phone and hailed the return of the production of the classic play Enemy of the People by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. I was stunned by the media bias as I read the article. It turns out that the play was revived recently by a theater company in Chicago right after the election of Donald Trump because the artistic director of Goodman Theater, Robert Falls, is no fan of the president.
NYT quotes Falls as saying, “I needed to do something about our sudden/current/soon-to-be ongoing horrific life under Trump and majority Republican rule,” he said in an email.
Already the art director may have shot himself in the foot by taking on Donald J. Trump, a fact the NYT makes note of in the very next paragraph.
The NYT writes, “Little did he know that Trump would stamp the phrase “enemy of the people” in the American consciousness when he used it to pillory the news media in a tweet last February.
The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!
That’s a fantastic tweet by the president by the way, and so true. My curiosity peaked, I went ahead and researched i.e. Googled the contents of the play that was brought back for the sole purpose of pillorying the president. When I found out what the play was about, I laughed out loud!
“I needed to do something about our sudden/current/soon-to-be ongoing horrific life under Trump and majority Republican rule! -Robert Falls, Artistic Director of Goodman Theaters in Chicago.
President Trump is supposed to be the modern “enemy of the people” but the original play written by Ibsen in 1882 is reminiscent of more recent events in Flint, Michigan. In fact, it’s downright prophetic! The story centers on the main protagonist named Dr. Thomas Stockmann, a geologist who discovers that the water in his little resort town has become contaminated. He endeavors to use the local newspaper to tell the people about the contamination, but the newspaper, which is originally on board with the article, balks under pressure from the City Mayor Peter Stockmann, Dr. Stockmann’s own brother.
The good doctor tries to go around the government and media obstacles in his path and takes his message straight to the people in a public meeting, but he presents himself in such a derisive elitist way that he ends of alienating his audience who brands him as the enemy of the people. His home is damaged, and he is practically run out of town. It’s a real downer, but the message is clear, the hero cannot win on his own.
How this play would end up harming the president, I have no idea. It’s like the theater people picked up a gun with a bad scope and ended up shooting themselves in the foot instead. Weird.
If you remember from recent news events and from my own blog, the real-life situation in Flint Michigan exactly mirrors the situation put forth in the play. Except that the contamination of the Flint water supply is not a natural disaster, but a man-made one brought on by the bad decision making of the city’s leadership, lifelong democrats who attempted to hide the fact that their actions had dire consequences on their city. Indeed, the recent events there has inspired an adaptation of the play, called Public Enemy: Flint. I doubt the play mentions that Democrats were to blame for the crisis and not our Republican president.
The Goodman Theater production has inspired theaters across the country to bring back productions of the play, including the Guthrie in the Twin Cities. Tickets became available in April and the play goes until early June. It would be interesting to see the play and gauge the reaction.
It’s funny how artistic expression like live theater has an effect on matters in the real world. Art imitates life, imitating art. That brings me back to the play I saw that night. Newsies was based on a movie in 1992 that covered events in 1899when young newspaper distributors, some as young as 9, organized a strike to protest unfair business practices of their employers, The New York World. Newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer, as well as other, publishes jacked up the price that the Newsies had to pay for a batch of 100 papers. Originally the Newsies paid $0.50 per hundred, but Pulitzer jacked up the price to $0.60 per hundred. The Newsies were pissed and organized a city-wide strike. Apparently, the Spanish-American war had just ended and the buzz for the war had increased distribution of the paper, as well as revenue. With the war ending, the news cycle calmed down and circulation slacked off. The business leaders of the paper decided to recoup their losses by jacking up the prices on the little guy. It had the opposite effect.
Interestingly, when reports of what the Newsies were doing cropped up in newspapers, including the World, Pulitzer acted to suppress the stories in an effort to prevent the stories from damaging the paper’s reputation. Interesting since Pulitzer was the very guy who founded the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for Journalism. A surprising nugget of information I did not learn in J-school!
In addition to suppressing the stories and blacklisting reporters who covered it, Pulitzer sends thugs with bats to break up the rallies organized by the Newsies. He sent men with bats to beat up children, let that fact sink in.
At the time of this strike, The World had been covering a railway strike that had been going on for months. What was good for the goose was not in this case good for the gander, at least where Joseph Pulitzer was concerned. I wonder if any recent Pulitzer Prize winners are aware of what a heal their hero was?
Interestingly enough the play casts Pulitzer as the villain he is but fails to mention that he was a lifelong Democrat from the South who fought in the Civil War. So, I guess somethings don’t change. The media, whether it is theater or the press or TV news, are great at focusing on content they want to cover, in order to vilify people they dislike but are less willing to shine that light of truth onto themselves. It’s interesting, isn’t it? But thanks to Google and Bing and the power of the Internet, the knowledge of the world is available at the touch of the fingers or even the sound of your own voice. It is important that in this modern media age that we don’t get so focused on our own reality that we don’t see what is happening outside our own little bubble.
Company towns and business leaders regardless of political stripe often take advantage of their workers in order to make a profit. It was true in 1800s New York and it’s true for 2018 Rochester Minnesota. Leaders often cover up their mistakes while in an effort to make themselves look good while viciously assaulting their political rivals. The EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency under Barack Obama, caused a major contamination spill to ruin a river in Colorado and has yet to make amends. Democrat leaders caused the Flint water crises. Has anyone heard about any of them going to jail? I could go on and on.
Plays like the one at Chanhassen and the Guthrie are fun nights of entertainment, and I’m not one to argue for the boycott of such plays. I suggest that the reader beware of any bias on behalf of the playwright and art directors when you attend. Sometimes you learn the truth in the enemy camp.
As for the actors and director of the Newsies produced at the Chanhassen, you are a talented crew and I thank you for an entertaining night out. We loved the pay and will come back again in the future. The serving staff was very helpful and gracious. The food was great and not too expensive.
If you book a seat for yourself and your crew, one word of advice. Get a table and avoid the booths in the far back. They suck.
Over a week ago the democrats and republicans of the first district of Minnesota endorsed their respective candidates to run for the open House of Representatives seat vacated by Tim Walz. Jim Hagedorn was endorsed by the Republicans, and Dan Feehan, a war veteran, received the nod from the Dems.
Now, I find the endorsement of Feehan to be a bit perplexing. Liberals in the state, as in any state, hate war, they hate the military, they hate the constitution. Why pick a war veteran like Feehan?! The only conclusion I can come up with is that in this district at least we are purple moderates and the war veteran with the flag is thrown at us to confuse us as voters. Dan is nothing more or less than a democratic Tim Walz clone, only sharper and more attractive.
Dan grew up in the Red Wing, went to school and got a teaching degree. Good for him. After 9-11 he joined the military and became an Army officer and airborne ranger, serving in the 4th Infantry Division in Iraq. Also good. He won a bronze star there for his role as a combat engineer. After returning from serving in the military, he went into teaching, first in Chicago, then in Indiana, teaching some of the poorer students.
Later he got a job as an acting assistant Secretary of Defense for Readiness in the Pentagon and he’s been living in the east ever since. Suddenly, the Democratic congressman from the First District is forced into retirement and Feehan feels the urge to return “home” to his roots. It’s like Tim was walking through the vaunted halls of Washington one day when he bumps into Feehan. He unceremoniously hands Feehan the keys to the office and a copy of the talking points on his way out the door.
It’s clear to me that this Walz clone was recruited by the left as yet another foot soldier who will follow orders from Democratic leadership in Congress and who will appeal to local voters at home the way that Tim Walz did for a time. And with very little exception, the issues championed by Feehan differ very little from the positions taken by Walz.
As an Army Ranger, Feehan is familiar with military operations in a dangerous theater. Let’s map out his road to war, shall we? Let’s imagine that the First District is his battle space and his road to war is the I-90 corridor that traverses the district from west to east. The road is full of pitfalls and IEDs, (improvised explosive devices) that are the political issues facing the candidate. Ironically enough, these danger areas were placed by the candidate’s own party. The ACA or Affordable Care Act is the first of the IED’s that Feehan will run into and it’s the first on his “to do” list.
Remember when the Democrats passed ACA without a single Republican vote? It was a disaster from the beginning and has been getting steadily worse ever since. Acclaimed as a precursor to single-payer, it is the leftist socialists’ idealized dream. Free healthcare for everyone. Except it always has the opposite effect where ever and whenever it is tried. Socialized medicine in Minnesota and the rest of the country predictably did not result in better care and lower costs as the Democrats predicted, but health care costs doubled and tripled, and the quality went down just as voices on the right predicted they would. Tim Walz’s undying support for ACA and single-payer is one of the reasons his seat is vacant today. He saw the writing on the wall after this colossal failure and went running for the hills to seek his political fortunes elsewhere, leaving poor Feehan to pick up the pieces. Remember that even in the beginning the website the sultans of smart promised would be the gateway to everyone getting insurance didn’t even work. This is the prime example of why one should never trust the elites and their unrealistic expectations.
So the up-armored Humvee of Tim Walz goes up in a blinding flame and in comes Feehan and his clean up crew to rescue the day. What is his first action?! On his website he promises to expand upon ACA by extending Medicare benefits for people as young as 55. Of course, you and I and our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will be paying for that, but don’t worry about it, because Feehan thinks it’s a great idea. I think someone should have taken an economics class in their graduate degree course.
It’s amazing to me that the Democrats have the audacity to call themselves the Democrat-Farm-Labor party. They always do things and enact regulation that his always harmful to farmers and small businesses. It’s the biggest fraud out there. But I digress. Farmers and small business owners hate ACA because it increases the cost of doing business exponentially as they struggle with paying for their own care as well as that of any employees. As Jim Hagedorn eloquently put it, if you’re a farmer or small business owner dealing with ACA, you can quit now or you can quit later. A thriving business under ACA is not possible and people in the first district are beginning to find that out.
If you ever want to look at what Universal Health Care does to an economy, you don’t have to look at the socialist or communist debacles of the distant past. You can look at your local newspaper or flip on the TV and watch it live and real. The VA is a single-payer system meant to help our veterans after catastrophic illness and injury associated with our service. Less than one percent of all Americans have served in any branch of the military. The VA is a demonstrable failure as veterans have had their appointments deleted and have died waiting for care as VA officials waste money on artwork and salary bonuses and special trips. Donald Trump has sought to change all of that, but the deep state is digging in their heals and resisting his every effort at reform. The government can’t manage the health care of the few who are the bravest among us. How can it promise to provide care for the rest of us, over 300 million Americans strong?! It can’t. But, that doesn’t prevent people like Feehan from being true believers.
If you want a close and personal look at what socialized medicine today, you don’t have to look very far. Look at little boy who just died in the UK, little Alfie Evans. He was denied the right to go to another country because the arrogant leftists in charge of health care in Britain refused to let him go and take his chances. Now his faithful parents are mourning his loss. If you want a detached panel of bureaucrats determining if your loved one lives or dies, then by all means vote democrat. Suddenly Sarah Palin’s stark warnings of death panels have become shockingly too real!
National Defense is the second IED that Feehan will encounter on our MSR (Main Supply Route) I-90. He’s got some chops here that he wants to show off. He’s a combat engineer with street cred: Bronze Star for Service, Army Commendation with V for valor, Iraqi Campaign Medal, two tours of duty in Iraq. Wow. Then three and a half years at the Pentagon under the Obama administration. Very nice. Hard to beat right. He touts on his website that he will control pentagon costs while continuing to fund the military. He’s going to cut waste and fun soldiers. Good luck with that one. The military is a dynamo that people have been trying to get their hands around for years. Everyone knows there is waste, but getting to the bottom of it is a monumental task. Let’s remember that Feehan was an appointee of the Obama administration, not really an ally of the military. I’m a veteran myself, and I have to tell you, it takes more than a veteran with a medal and a flag to impress me. Walz had those in spades, and he failed to impress. Walz clone Dan Feehan has big shoes to fill.
Napoleon famously said a man will fight harder for a bit of tin and ribbon, but that is not what the American veteran is all about. We fight for things far more intangible and more highly valued than ribbons, we fight for freedom. How is a big state democrat going to fight for the freedom of the average American when all of his efforts go to creating more power for a political class in Washington?
Democrats and Republicans alike voted for the huge omnibus bill that funds the military with 800 billion with a b dollars. While I have plenty of criticism of this bill, how would Feehan handle it any different? Aircrews and their maintenance teams have struggled in the last few years to keep our aviators flying in jets safe to conduct their missions. Half the fleet has been grounded while funding for repairs awaits. In Minnesota, the Air National Guard has two great air wings that benefit from added funding, the 933 Air Lift Wing, flying the antiquated but highly robust C-130s, (you can see the big green airplanes flying around Rochester airport doing touch and gos), and Duluth’s 148th Fighter Wing, still flying the old F-16 fighter. These aircraft require a lot of repair and maintenance. Both units have served in the Global War on Terror with distinction. Many comment that they look and act with as much or more professionalism as their active duty counterparts. I’m sure Feehan has looked at the patch charts and budgets of these units in his role in the Pentagon. I would like to see him drill down to the brass tacks on what he would cut and what he would fund, rather than just making blanket statements. I have a feeling he doesn’t know and that at the end of the day he would just cut everything like his bosses in the House and Senate order him to.
The third IED is the Second Amendment. This weekend I attended a #2A Rally in St. Paul. There were a lot of patriots out there to show support for the Bill of Rights and specifically for the Second Amendment. It’s amazing to hear how Democrats in the Minnesota Legislature planned to curtail our second amendment rights in the last legislative session. Heroes like Rep. Marion O’Neill were barely able to ward off this attack on our constitutional rights. As she pointed out in her remarks on the Capitol steps, we mourn the loss of people killed through violence. But we will not give up our rights to self-defense. You can watch a portion of the rally on my YouTube channel at this link.
Candidate Feehan breaks significantly with his predecessor in that he supports what he calls, “common sense gun control legislation”. This is a big one as I don’t think Feehan knows how people feel about this issue in the first district. Jim Hagedorn does, “This is not a gun control district, this is a conceal and carry district!”
People in Minnesota, as well as the rest of the country, were shocked and appalled at the latest violence in our schools. But, we are cognizant that the problem is not with inanimate objects like guns, which are tools, the problem lies in the hearts of the offenders. People in this district are aware that the only thing that will stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. Period. Feehan’s departure from the Walz script could be very costly for him. Dan, you took an oath to defend the constitution of the United States, as I did. What part of “shall not infringe” do you not understand?
The final IED we will cover in this column is Feehan’s stance on agriculture. Every politician in the rural areas always touts their support for agriculture, the breadbasket of the world which lies in part right here in the first district. Dan has lofty goals of supporting a farm bill that will help farmers in our district. But in his speeches, he says he supports climate change legislation. Really, Dan!? Nothing kills a farmer like the ACA, unless you’re talking about out of control environmentalism, also quite deadly to the farmer. Subsidies for farmers are nice, but that won’t help them find new and better markets for their goods. If you support, on the other hand, piles of regulations telling farmers how to run their own land, then it won’t matter, the farmer will be dead. Donald Trump as stood up to foreign interests like China to get a better deal for American commodities. He’s actually making headway. A vote for Feehan would be a vote to impeach Trump and end his efforts and reverse his progress. Good luck in your next career, former farmer. The farmers in this district, when they are not dealing with the endless paperwork and expense of the ACA, have to fight the EPA who are constantly telling them they can’t use their own productive land because there is a crick running through it.
Deregulation and free-market health care are the answers to farmers, not more pie in the sky regulations from a distant government in St. Paul and Washington.
Energy usage in Minnesota plays a big part in the overhead cost for farmers, here as elsewhere. For decades Minnesota has flirted with alternative forms of energy, from ethanol to wind and solar. Of those, only ethanol has made a positive impact and even that is debatable. As a video from Prager University points out, wind and solar make for unnecessary and costly duplication of effort. On days with no wind and days with no sun, a robust coal and natural gas industry must take up the slack. Oddly enough, those times tend to fall on peak days when the wind and solar are not working.
These costs stack up for the farmer who is getting less and less per bushel for the commodities he is attempting to bring to market. Subsidies are the only way these sources of energy seem to have to survive. If they can’t survive in the free market, they should be allowed to die, and the state should be left alone to use its clean coal, natural gas, and nuclear energy, proven energy sources that work. I doubt Feehan gets this. His convoy is about to blow up in his face.
Now, Dan seems to be a likable guy. He’s got a nice family. I don’t hold anything against him, other than his misguided liberal principles. It isn’t about Dan. A vote for Dan is a vote for Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House and Maxine Waters as a chairperson of important committees, a fact pointed out by Minnesota Congressman Tom Emmer. Let’s face it. Maxine is ugly on the outside and the inside, and dumb as a box of rocks. Both of these women would vote to reverse the voters will on election day and end the Trump administration. Dan would no doubt be a crucial pawn in this fight. We need someone in Minnesota who has Minnesota values, not someone taking orders from California.
State Senator Carla Nelson, left, is a close personal friend who attended my wife’s naturalization ceremony in Minneapolis. Sen. Nelson would be a great representative of MN’s First District. – photo by Jeremy Griffith
Now Minnesota has two excellent candidates for CD1. They are in a tough primary fight and either one would be a great representative of our district. I would be remiss in failing to mention either one. Carla Nelson is my State Senator and a close personal friend. She has been a great representative of our state and has a proven track record. Full disclosure, she attended my wife’s naturalization ceremony in Minneapolis when my Rose became an American Citizen. She attended my retirement from the Army Reserve and wowed my commander and my fellow soldiers with her support for the armed forces. She would be a great representative for our state and the liberals should be very concerned if she emerges to face them after the primary.
GOP Endorsed Candidate Jim Hagedorn, at a pro-gun rally in St. Paul over the weekend. Jim’s never-surrender attitude is the reason Tim Walz’s seat is empty. – photo by Jeremy Griffith
Jim Hagedorn is also a good friend and is the endorsed candidate for the GOP in this district. Let’s be frank, Jim is the reason Tim’s seat is empty. Jim won 49.6 percent of the vote last time with no support from the national GOP party. This time he has got it and the seat is vacant, do the math. Jim has worn out the shoe leather on several pairs of shoes walking across the district in his campaigning and his quit-is-not-an-option attitude is Lincolnesqe. He supports the Second Amendment, unlike Feehan who seems to want to curtail our rights with “common sense” legislation that would eventually lead to confiscation. If you want to hear a portion of what Jim has to say about this issue, listen to my YouTube video of the #2A rally in St. Paul this weekend. Jim would be a very good representative for our district and our state. Dan and his crew should be very nervous.
As a ranger, Dan probably doesn’t know what it’s like to lose. He’s about to find out, in November.
I challenge any Feehan surrogates to debate me and prove me wrong. Let’s chat about the issues. I’m Jeremy Griffith, writer, blogger, and retired soldier. Defend the issues in a friendly debate. I dare you. The gauntlet has been thrown.
Jeremy Griffith is an Army veteran and retired captain who served in the Army National Guard and Reserve. He is the author of the novel, LSA Adder and the creator of The American Millennium Online blog.
Both houses of Congress, consisting of both parties, have passed a $1.3 Trillion omnibus spending bill that will increase the national debt, highlighting the need for a Convention of States. The president of United States, Donald Trump, has caved on his promise of building a wall and let the swamp steamroll him. He’s given up, but we must not.
Chuck Schumer, the smug democratic senator, has gleefully remarked that his party is achieving more as the minority party than when they were in power. And the Republicans we elected, including President Trump, have gone against our desires to drain the swamp and return to fiscal sanity, have caved to the Democrats and the bureaucrats and given them everything they’ve wanted.
It’s time we acted to preserve our country and Article V of the Constitution is the vehicle of that change. In Article V it sets up the possibility that a convention of states called for by the state legislatures to amend the constitution. Each state can send as many delegates to this convention as possible but each state only gets one vote and the voting delegate is bound by the will of the state that sent him or her. The convention meets to make amendments to the constitution that must then be ratified by 3/4ths of the state legislatures to take effect.There is a beautiful video explaining the process above.
One of the items on the agenda is to bring term limits to every federal legislator limiting them to 12 years in office. Any legislator who has served longer than that is returned to civilian life and a new election is held to choose a replacement. This would be a great way to drain the Swamp of Washington D.C. where many of our congressmen and women have served their own interests for decades without any thought for the people they serve.
There has been a concern for a so-called runaway constitutional convention. People say that the floor would be open to utterly trashing the constitution and putting something else in its place. Nothing could be further from the truth as Mark Levin points out in the video below.
Anyone who is interested in the Convention of States should visit this website and learn more. It’s time to tell Washington enough is enough. The debt and out of control government is not sustainable, and our lawmakers should be made aware of our feelings and given their walking papers. The time is now.
Officer Bridget Balasko drives her squad car up to the curb and parks. The sharp, crisp air of a Michigan winter greets her as she disembarks. She adjusts her gun belt and pulls her jacket collar about her neck to ward off the cold. She proceeds to walk to the door of the urban Flint home that was the source of the call. She is responding to a 911 call, 24-hours late.
It’s a scene of the new docu-series on Netflix entitled Flint Town, and it is a winner. Abandoning the mundane techniques of storytelling so common with other reality shows touching law enforcement, this series tells a broader story of a dying metropolitan city through the lens of police perspective. Beautifully shot and directed, the candor of the police officers who participate is gripping and sad. A town caught up in poverty after a major car company left decades before, complicated by a water contamination crisis and a city government cover-up, there is tension in the air as events unfold. This is binge watch TV at it’s finest.
A new mayor comes into power, promising change and a solution to the water crisis caused by the previous administration. Dr. Karen Weaver makes changes right away, firing the old police chief and hiring a new one. Together with the incoming chief of police, Timothy Johnson, the pair attempt to put their ailing city back together.
With only 98 officers covering an urban population of 100,000, Chief Johnson struggles to provide crime prevention coverage in a city where the average 911 call can garner a response in anywhere from 2-24 hours. Meanwhile the city council squabbles about how best to operate the city, making critical decisions about the budgets of the fire department and police department that are seriously undermanned and underfunded.
Filmmakers embedded with the police department for a year to provide 8 episodes, each less than an hour long and often not much more than 30 minutes long. It is easy to get caught up in the series and binge watch all 8 episodes in one day. This series is gritty and sad and I found watching that I was getting caught up with the stories of individual characters. I hope that the producers of this show produce a second series of 8 more episodes, longer this time, to let us know what happens to these courageous people in a story that is not well covered by the mainstream media. With the reaction of the police chief and the mayor on official channels, I find it unlikely, however, which is unfortunate. This is a true life story that needs to be told, and people need to watch.
The call that officer Balasko goes on does not go well. The African-American homeowner is not pleased that the police have been so tardy in responding to his burglary call. He blasts the young officer, who has been on the force only 3 years, and she listens with patience, taking in the details of the incident and a description of the men who robbed the homeowner. “I’m sorry it took so long to respond to your call,” the officer says. “We’ve had a high volume of priority calls.” Balasko apologizes again as she leaves the residence. She has 20 calls waiting on her overnight shift, and she has reports to write. She longs to be promoted to the detective bureau but because of changes in the department and budgetary shortfalls, her dream of becoming a detective has been put on hold. In the meantime, she struggles with the volume of work in an undermanned department where she often goes in alone to intimidating and dangerous situations. Balasko is only one of several dynamic real-world characters that if you watch you will want to get to know.
Whether or not there will be a follow-on series where we find those answers is up in the air.
The popular video sharing platform YouTube, which is owned by Google, is discontinuing much of their online content on the gun building, use, and instruction. What will be the result? I predict that YouTube has shot themselves in the foot and will miss out on revenue as millions of people shift their pro-second amendment videos to other platforms or create new ones.
There is an interesting article in Bloomberg News this week that touches on this issue, explaining the reasoning. I won’t rehash the whole thing, but you can read it for yourself here. It makes some interesting points, mentioning that many gun advocates have already shifted their videos to platforms that are more friendly to their cause. Like Dick’s Sporting Goods, which made the unfortunate decision to no longer offer popular semi-automatic rifles for sale, and have lost revenue because of it, I predict that YouTube will suffer a similar fate. The free market of ideas will eventually win and a new more constitution friendly platform will emerge, as it should. When you dis your customers, you lose them. That’s how capitalism and free markets work.
Incidentally, the video accompanying the Bloomberg article is almost completely false in its analysis of what is going on with the second amendment debate. The narrator makes the extraordinary claim that Republicans in Congress weekend measures to prevent mentally ill people from getting guns. Individual states have individual laws regarding who gets a gun and who doesn’t. State rights and powers are defined in the constitution specifically in the 9th and 10th amendments and any law by the federal government to usurp the states would be in danger of a constitutional challenge, which is why Republicans rejected it. The Bloomberg video also states, amazingly, that many states allow guns in schools, churches and public buildings. It makes this statement even though it is provably false. I don’t know any state that allows you to enter a government building with a privately owned gun, let alone a school.
It also never makes the analysis that all school shootings happen in schools that are posted as gun free zones. It never mentions the massive government failures to protect students from mass shootings, including failures of local police, sheriff’s departments or the FBI.
Articles like this that have such shoddy reporting is why many in the US don’t trust the mainstream media. Studies show time after time that guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens reduce crime considerably. The idea that you can have gun free zones and feel safe from gun crime is arguably false, time and time again, and yet the left-leaning media keeps repeating the same lie over and over again. Michael Bloomberg, former Mayor of New York City and a gun rights opponent, owns Bloomberg news and continues to find anti-second amendment rallies, paying millions of dollars to fund them. It would make sense that a report on his website would contain so many falsehoods.
It’s too bad that YouTube has made this nonsensical decision, punishing millions of its users who are law abiding citizens. Fortunately, we have a free internet and can go to other channels to upload our content, without the First Amendment hating leftists attempting to shut down our conservative free speech.
Here is one of my favorite channels that offered gun instruction video on YouTube that might eventually go away because of the ban.
Who needs the AR-15? That seems to be the question of heated debate today following the horrible shooting of a Florida school at the hands of a deranged gunman. Overlooked is the fact that there were many systemic failures of law enforcement that allowed this tragedy to happen, people are instead choosing to blame the gun for the massacre, an inanimate object with no will of its own.
Over the past few days, students have marched out of their classrooms an have hit the streets in protest, some even going to the Washington DC capitol lawn itself, demanding that the government take away rights of its citizen and ban a certain type of rifle used to commit the horrible deed. School systems, who normally hate to give students a day off, are actually endorsing this activity and raising money for it in order to bus their students to the nation’s capital to participate in this political foray.
So why wouldn’t a person want to ban this horrible weapon of war? Don’t we care about our children’s safety enough to take out of production this one weapon? Shouldn’t we do it?
Never mind that it is a horrible blow against the rights of individual citizens, many law-abiding gun owners who were in no way involved in the shooting. It’s time to act and act now.
But, is it? Will the banning of this frightening black gun accomplish anything?
Who needs the black rifle? It turns out I do, and many Americans do as well. The AR-15 and other semi-automatic rifles are an essential part of the American life. Indeed, the AR itself is America’s rifle, if there is such a thing. In the North American continent, ordinary people used semi-automatic rifles and handguns for self-defense on a daily basis. In Mexico, for example, where the government police and army are notoriously corrupt, avocado farmers have become the victims of the evil drug cartels. These farmers make millions of dollars from their products they produce on their farms and the cartels have taken notice and have tried to take control. The police won’t defend the farmers from the cartels, so the farmers have taken the law into their own hands.
The avocado farmers now hire men to defend their lands against the drug lords, arming security with the infamous black rifle. Now, nobody messes with them and the people can have their guacamole.
In Los Angeles in 1992, riots broke out in the city when a jury inexplicably acquitted two white police officers after they horribly beat and nearly killed a black man, Rodney King. The protestors rallied in the streets, looting and burning buildings and stores, and beating up residents. More than 50 people were killed in the riots, innocent people who had nothing to do with the outcome of the court trial.
In one LA neighborhood, where residents were predominantly Asian Americans, the majority of which were Korean, they were equally targeted and held helpless by the mob. The police were overwhelmed and often just kept to protecting the downtown areas and government property, leaving the residents to fend for themselves. The Koreans did so, arming themselves with shotguns, and pistols and a few had the AR-15. The AR is credited with being the rifle of choice so intimidating to the blacks that would rob and loot, that they bypassed those stores and neighborhoods so armed and moved on to easier prey. The Asian stores were saved, by the AR-15!
There have been several times where local citizens defended others and themselves with the AR-15. In Texas, a deranged gunman went into a church armed with this weapon and started killing people who worshipped inside. A neighbor heard the commotion and went to investigate, armed with his own AR-15. The two men met in the yard and there was a confrontation, bullets flying in both directions. But, the neighbor was an NRA firearms instructor and he was able to would the gunman who dropped his weapon and fled. In this scenario, the NRA guy was actually the hero, not the object of the people’s derision and loathing.
In the west, armed ranchers defended themselves against a tyrannical government law enforcement agency that came to illegally move the ranchers off public land and seize their cattle. The ranchers held firm and the bureau officers were forced to retreat in sight of men armed with the AR-15.
I can go on and on, but you get the point. Students and their parents, indeed the Hollywood funnymen and celebrities all cry out together “do you love your guns more than you love our children?!” An interesting mantra given the fact that the same people are overwhelmingly for the destruction of unborn babies in the womb, but I digress. No, it’s not a zero-sum game, people. We love our liberty as much as we love our children and we understand that it is our responsibility to defend both.
In the old west, America’s rifle used to be the lever action carbine as represented by the Henry rifle. It was used countless times by ranchers to defend themselves from marauding Indians. It was also used to great effect by Native American tribes to defend their lives and the lives of their children and families against government forces that had come to wipe them out at The Little Bighorn. Instead, the government forces, lead by the extremely arrogant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, were the ones to be wiped out. Later, in South Dakota, the worst American mass murder was committed by government forces when they tried to forcibly remove firearms from defeated tribes at Wounded Knee. The Natives had every right to defend themselves, but the government took their rights, indeed their very lives, away.
We don’t have to look very far back in history to see what happens when an over-reaching government takes guns and rights away from people. World War II is a great example, but it’s ancient history for the millennial and easily overlooked by their history teachers. No, you can just look at the headlines today. Venezuela a rich communist country rich with oil is taking away guns from their starving citizens and arming those loyal to their repressive government. The black South African government has vowed to steal land from white ranchers and give the lands over to their fellow blacks. In Iraq and the greater Middle East, ISIS forces were killing Christians and Yazidis who had no means of defending themselves until the United States finally decided they’d let that continue long enough and put a stop to it. I can go on, and on, but you would just get bored.
The point is, there are a lot of people who want to join the debate and try to figure out a way to keep dangerous people from getting guns and going on these mass shootings, but they are being drowned out by zealots who only want to take guns and rights away. We want to talk about safer schools and ending bullying and properly forcing the gun laws that already exist, but that is not enough for the gun grabbers in our society. I have to look in shock and awe at the useful idiots marching to Washington as they scream their message and snuff out any opinion that differs from their own. There is video of a school administrator stealing a student’s sigh and removing them from campus. The message on the sign: guns don’t kill people, people kill people. Apparently, at that school, Freedom of speech is not protected if you represent an opposing viewpoint?!
Florida has already caved to this lobby and stolen the rights of young people to defend themselves with guns. The NRA has happily sued to protect those rights, but in the new normal, who knows if they will be successful. Now a young girl worried about being raped on campus won’t be able to defend herself with a gun because she is only 18 and by law is prevented from purchasing a gun. I guess she’ll just have to take self-defense classes, arm herself with pepper spray and hope for the best. Meanwhile, our young men can join the military and die for their country, but they can’t buy a gun and they can’t buy a beer. Not mature enough, they say. What?!
Honestly, I’d like to see more steps taken to protect our schools. I would like to see locking mechanisms put in place to make classrooms impenetrable during an attack. What happens when the someone tries to burn the school down and the students can’t get out.
I’d like to see police officers armed in the schools to protect their students. What if the cops lose their nerve as was the case in this latest shooting spree?
I’d like to see door locks on schools that require an employee to buzz people in and leave suspicious people out. What if a gunman takes a hostage and bypasses the system? One of a thousand things could go wrong, but the simpletons think they can control evil with a law.
I think we need a more erudite debate, not letting emotions get the best of us. We can have safer schools, we can protect our children, and our rights. We don’t have to choose one over the other.
Got a different opinion. Change my mind. Leave comments below.
Me, the author, representing my ward and precinct at the Olmsted County GOP convention.
by Jeremy Griffith
The American Millennium Online
Olmsted County Republicans met at the Byron Middle School Saturday where the Grand Old Party decided on what resolutions to adopt as part of their platform, what delegates to send to the CD1 (congressional district one of Minnesota) and State conventions respectively in Mankato and Duluth, and for two of the districts to endorse candidates for office at the state level. The GOP attained a quorum, but there were a lot of open seats in the auditorium.
I alone was there to represent my district as a delegate, Ward 1 Precinct 1. It was easy to count votes. I had a row to myself.
Empty seats. -photo by Jeremy Griffith
We elected delegates to the CD1 and State conventions, but I’m not aware of who those people are. The results were not in by the time we adjourned. Presumably, the party leadership will tell us before the next convention. I’m looking forward to voting at the endorsing convention in Mankato next month.
Several political candidates gave speeches at the events, including Jim Hagedorn, who is running again for Tim Walz’s vacated seat, and his GOP rival, State Senator Carla Nelson, each vying for the party endorsement. Both are great candidates and did their best to differentiate themselves from one another. Hagedorn demonstrated how close he was last time, giving himself credit for Walz bowing out of a future campaign and instead running for governor. Nelson touted her amazing record as a conservative leader who gets things done in the Minnesota legislature. It will be hard for me to choose between them next month.
Carla Nelson appeals to the convention. -photo by Jeremy Griffith
State Senator Carla Nelson with Olmsted County GOP Co-chair Aaron Miller. Nelson spoke at the Olmsted County GOP as part of her campaign to fill Tim Walz’s vacated seat in the US Congress. -photo by Jeremy Griffith
Jim Hagedorn states his case to the delegates at the Olmsted County GOP convention. -photo by Jeremy Griffith
GOP State Chairperson Jennifer Carnahan gave a report of the party explaining her accomplishments so far. The party funding shortfall is slowly shrinking as the party gains more and more momentum in raising revenue. I received an infographic earlier last month detailing Carnahan’s plan to once again turn the state red. It was very impressive.
MN State GOP Chairperson Jennifer Carnahan gives a speech at the convention. -photo by Jeremy Griffith
Several candidates who are vying for Mark Dayton’s old seat in the Governor’s mansion spoke to the quorum, including former GOP state chair Keith Downey, Woodbury Mayor Mary Giuliani Stephens, and Hennepin County Commissioner Jeff Johnson.
Hennepin County Commissioner Jeff Johnson is running for Governor. -photo by Jeremy Griffith
State Rep. Duane Quam answers questions from a reporter. -photo by Jeremy Griffith
Nels Pierson was endorsed for another run as State Rep in his district. And another endorsing campaign with two African American candidates vying for the same seat ran against one another. I left before that mini-convention as I was not a representative of that district. I will let you know the result when I get it.
Nels Pierson once again received the endorsement of his constituents to run as their representative in the state legislature. -photo by Jeremy Griffith
Several recommended additions to the party platform were voted on. I am not aware of the result. I personally spoke against a ban on pornography and cigarettes. Both might be harmful, but the GOP is not the party of the nanny state, I argued. I don’t want a bunch of church ladies from the party raiding Minnesota museums taking paintings off the wall and statues out of the gallery because of their vague view of what “pornography” is. With cigarettes, we know they are harmful, the information is available to everyone. But Republicans is not the nanny-state party. We don’t put a ban of free will. That’s the Democrats. “What’s next for us then?” I wondered aloud. “Are we going to ban Kinky Vodka because we don’t like the pink and blue colors, or the taste? Is that something we should put on the party’s stated principle values?!”
“You either love the First Amendment or you don’t!” I said. “When we’re the party out of power, we love the First Amendment protection so we can still advance our political ideals. When we are in power, we shouldn’t be the party that bans unpleasant speech, burns books and magazines, raids museums, or slaps the hands of every individual who picks up a cigarette, cigar, pipe or vape!” I didn’t see anyone talk in favor of the amendment, and I’m not sure who authored it, nor do I understand their motivation.
Someone authored an amendment declaring it a right for all Minnesotans to clean air and water. Another delegate argued, “who is against those things? Really!? Do we need that in the party platform? It’s a given, is it not?” Good point.
Excuse me?! I have a question about the resolution?!
Someone offered a resolution in support of merit-based immigration and there was a lot of debate. What immigrants have merit and who decides? My mother-in-law is a resident alien living with her daughter and son-in-law in Texas. She came here legally and has a green card. She will never have a job and earn an income, never pay taxes. So what value is she to the state where she lives.? Well, I can tell you that the very pleasant 70-plus-year-old repaired a BB-8 plush toy after her grandson ripped his head off by accident. I’m sure 10-year old Nathan thought that had value. She cooks for her family and cleans house, taking care of adults as well as grandchildren. Is that the value that proponents of the measure were talking about, or what?! It wasn’t made clear.
My mother in law with my wife at the Minnesota State Capitol. What immigrants have merit and which ones don’t. Nobody explained. -photo by Jeremy Griffith
That’s pretty much my summary. Lunch was pretty lame. Not sure I will buy one at the next convention. If I’m paying $10, I should at least have a soda of my choice, not just water. There, I’m done. See you next month in Mankato, Republicans!
Interested in my view on politics and the world. Visit www.americanmillenniumonline.com for more of my blogs.
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Normally, I’m a very pro-law enforcement guy, which makes this column all the more painful to write. It has been reported that in addition to the school resource officer failing to go into the Florida school to stop the horrible massacre, his buddies, three of them, also failed to do their jobs and enter the school.
Now, from a tactical point of view, I can see why sheriff’s deputies did this. Rushing headlong into a potential ambush is not a fun time. But when you are charged with protecting your community and your neighborhoods, especially young people, that is your job! You are the sheepdog protecting the sheep. You have to go, and if you can’t go, you shouldn’t be in that line of work.
It appears that the school resource officer, Scot Peterson, who was on campus at the Florida school when the gunfire was sounding throughout his campus, took a position of safety and let four precious minutes tick by while people were dying inside. Likewise, his compatriots also took position outside and occupied a wait-and-see attitude while students, teachers and staff were being slaughtered.
What is particularly brutal about the whole thing is, that the Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel attended a CNN sponsored townhall the other day and used that platform to blast the NRA and it’s millions of Law-Abiding members, when he knew, HE KNEW, that his department failed to act in defense of children! Wow.
I think there should be an outside investigation into all the failures of this department, what I will now call the Broward Cowards, and that Scott Israel should resign his post as sheriff. Get someone in that position who really shows initiative in protecting the citizens he is charged with defending, not someone just interested in a big fat paycheck.
Some people decry the militarization of the police force. I am not one of them. Buy them the MRAP armored vehicle. Put Kevlar helmets and body armor in every vehicle, right next to the defibrillator and first aid kit, put an AR-15 or M4 rifle in every squad car, right next to the shotgun. And for the love of our children, train these officers to run towards the danger and not away from it.
Nobody wants to see a police officer shot in the line of duty. Our hearts break when we hear that has happened. Our hearts are broken now, for all those kids and teachers, and their respective families. If this horrible shooting has shown us anything is that the government with its huge budget and all its assets is still not sufficient to protect us. Ultimately we are responsible for protecting ourselves. Go get some training, jiu-jitsu, tae kwon do, judo; get a gun and become proficient at shooting; join the NRA and get some professional training. I am a member, and I am proud of it. At the end of the day, I love cops, I support them, but I realize that I am solely responsible for the defense of myself and my family. I have to be the sheepdog because I can’t depend on anyone else to do it. That’s why I have an AR-15, and other guns. If someone tries to harm me or my family, the cops can clean up the mess when they get there, because it’s going to be over very quickly.
I fully agree with some of what has been said about mental health in this country and how it has been neglected. Institutions should be brought back to attempt to help the mentally ill and treat those who have long-term problems. They should be heavily regulated and monitored so the rights of those receiving treatments are being protected and these institutions do not denigrate into the cesspools they once were. There should be outpatient programs so that people battling this disease can graduate to a level of normalcy within their communities, under the supervision of trained mental health staff. And, for the violently insane, there should be a legal process to strip them of their rights to own a gun and a way for their names to be added to the no-buy list.
All of these safeguards, we know, can fail. Every one of the safeguards put in place in Florida failed. Banning guns, even certain kinds of guns, will not help. Famed Texas sniper Charles Whitman used a deer rifle with a three-round box magazine to commit his crimes. Evil will find a way. But the law-abiding should not be blamed for the actions of a few insane villains.
The author with an F4 Phantom II fighter jet, at Fort Snelling, Minnesota.
by Jeremy Griffith
The American Millennium Online
This might be the unpopular opinion of the week, but I’m going to put it out there anyway, and then I’m going to justify it. I think Trump’s idea to have a military parade in Washington D.C. on Independence Day is a great idea and should proceed!
A lot of people, including that guy who was a Navy SEAL who allegedly shot Osama in the head, think it’s a bad idea and makes us look like a third world dictatorship. First of all, there are some problems with the analogy. Russia has a military parade every year, they are a first world superpower and allegedly a democracy. China has military parades every year. The left and right of the political spectrum both love China for different reasons. North Korea, the worst example in this list, has a parade. The leftist elites and journalists absolutely love North Korea. Look how much they are fawning over that dictator’s little sister Kim Yo Jong. They adore the little communist and her fat little brother so much you have to be careful of all the drool on the floor.
France has a military parade and they are not third world. That’s where the Trumpster got the idea in the first place. We don’t have a military parade every year, but we’ve been fighting a global war on terror for 17 straight years without let up. It’s time we honor those who have served, who were wounded, and those who died in that war, with a massive parade. It will also remind the world that we are still the most powerful nation in the world and will remind them not to mess with us, because we mean business. Get the message North Korea?!
It will also serve as a reminder to the American people that we have been in a war all this time and that war from our standpoint has had more success than failure. I think that a lot of civilians in this country don’t know anyone who has served in that war, do not pay attention and couldn’t care less. For those of you who have had relatives serving in the war, none of you who I have spoken to can name the place where they have served, you don’t know what their job specialty is, and you don’t know the name of the unit they are serving with.
For example, I can ask a veteran where he served. He will tell me, if he isn’t a valor thief, what unit he came from, his commander’s name, maybe the name of his Sergeant Major, First Sergeant or squad leader, they’ll tell you the name of the unit, to include battalion, company, platoon and squad, they’ll tell you what base they were operating out of which country and the time frame of their deployment. If they moved bases, they will tell you the approximate timeframe of the move. For example, we may have started out in Tallil, Iraq in March of 2004, but about three months later we moved to Al Taggadem, where we stayed for the rest of our tour.
Here is an example from my perspective. I was a transportation officer with HHC 1-34 BCT, that is, headquarters and headquarters company of the First Brigade Combat Team of the 34th Infantry Division. We were stationed in Tallil Iraq, also known as LSA Adder. (LSA stands for Logistical Supply Area). My immediate supervisor was Major Brian Studer who was the Brigade S4 Logistics officer. I also worked with Major Phillip Moran, the Brigade Transportation officer. I was there from 2006-2007. We were deployed for 15 months in theater because we were extended for The Surge. We were supposed to be replaced by elements of 10th Mountain Division, but they were moved up north. We were eventually replaced by elements of the 82nd Airborne Division, etc., etc.
A valor thief will not be able to tell you that. A family member won’t either, but what is embarrassing is, they probably won’t be able to name the base, the unit, or their soldier’s primary job.
For example, I should be able to ask you where your son, daughter, cousin, nephew is and you should be able to tell me, “oh, he’s a Marine stationed at Camp Leatherneck in Afghanistan. I think he’s infantry.”
That should suffice, but all I ever get is, “Oh, I don’t know. I think he’s a Marine. He’s somewhere over there!”
How discouraging. You ask anyone else about what they know about the war and they are totally uninformed and uninterested.
Less than one percent of the nation ever serves in the military in any capacity. Less than that, about one percent of that number, have served in combat. That is an amazing number. And while the reception to returning troops from this war has been much better than the Vietnam Vets, it still could be better. I mean, if we really gave a crap about our vets, then the VA would not be broken and the suicide rate would not be so high.
So, I think a parade celebrating American might in the war on terror is appropriate, especially on a holiday. It will show pride in the participants and will be of interest to the public. As a one-off, it would be a good thing. I don’t think we should have it every year. Given the amazing progress we’ve made against ISIS in Iraq under President Trump, it is about time our troops took a victory lap. That is why I think the parade should go on, with respect to those who think it shouldn’t.
We have some wonderful titles out in print that we are happy to offer, my own book about Iraq called, “LSA Adder” is in print at Amazon.com. You can find it at the link here.
Also, “The House on Spirit Lake” is out in print. It is a paranormal mystery I wrote and is also available from Amazon. Both books are available in soft cover and as an ebook.
Cover Art for House on Spirit Lake, by Jeremy Griffith. -photo art by Susie Loechler of Suzimages.com
by Jeremy Griffith
The American Millennium Online
We’ve been away for a while, but we are back to announce the reason for our prolonged absence from the web. Today we announce the introduction of two new novels by yours truly available now on Amazon.com: LSA Adder, and The House on Spirit Lake.
House on Spirit Lake is a novel I am exceptionally pleased with. It came available yesterday and can be had in paperback and eBook from Amazon.com. It is the story of a young girl, Sarah Gavin. She is killed twenty years ago by her maniacal twin brother Jonathan at the tender age of 13. Now, as Jonathan transforms into a full-fledged serial killer, his sister’s rest is interrupted and her ghost looks for revenge for the women her brother has hurt.
The book is 200 pages and is terribly frightening. Don’t read it in the dark, and if you do, be warned. I think I was particularly inspired.
The other book available in both paperback and eBook is LSA Adder and is a historical fiction book about one company commander’s journey to achieve his mission and bring all his men and women safe home from Iraq. Torn from my own experiences and the experiences of others, the story follows one commander, Captain Rick Jensen and his amazing crew of transporters as they patrol the dangerous main supply routes of southern and central Iraq. In this story, I put you in the humvee alongside our brave soldiers and let you experience what we experienced at the hight of ‘The Surge’. It is an experience you won’t soon forget.
Ever since leaving Iraq in 2007, I have been working on this novel, and LSA Adder is my dream come true, my first real novel come to fruition. I poured my heart and soul into this book and it is a story that will rip your heart out. I think this story will endure in the reader’s mind for a long time.
I’m very pleased to offer these two new titles, and I promise to deliver many more in the coming months and years. I believe I’ve cracked the nut now with self-publishing from Kindle Direct Publishing from Amazon. It is a great platform to share my fiction with you, the reader. Stay tuned to this blog to find out more about titles coming out in the near future. As always, I will maintain this blog to share my opinions about culture and politics, and I welcome your input as we make this journey together.
Regards,
Jeremy Lloyd Griffith
To purchase House on Spirit Lake go to this link at Amazon.com.
To purchase LSA Adder, visit this link at Amazon.com.
The movie “Thank You For Your Service” was more than a movie for me, it was a deeply moving experience that everyone should watch, especially if you have a loved one who served in the Global War on Terror.
I was in Iraq, for 15 months. I often feel like I was a well-armed, well-trained, well-paid tourist. My logistics job didn’t allow me to go out on patrols every day, though I would very much have wanted to. My brigade was in Iraq for so long because we were extended for the surge. We had more consecutive days in combat than any other unit, so I get it. I watched them load flag-draped coffins of ice with human remains on to aircraft, more than once. Having said that, I never saw anyone die, and I never fired a shot; my job did not require it.
When I heard about this movie, of course, I wanted to see it. I hoped that it was not some cheesy make a buck off the war movie that got everything wrong. I hoped there would be action. It was not that kind of a film. Instead, the story centered on one squad of soldiers and their squad leader on one or two days fighting in Iraq. Staff Sergeant Adam Schumann is on patrol in his convoy in a bustling city somewhere in central Iraq. This is about 2007-time frame, the same time I was there. The patrol goes terribly wrong, and there are casualties.
The movie fast-forwards to the soldiers’ arrival at their home base of Fort Riley, Kansas. From the combat patches worn by the soldiers, it can be guessed that they belong to the Big Red One, 1st Infantry Division. The soldiers are greeted by loved ones as they get off the plane, and then they attempt to re-integrate back into their regular lives. This story is poignant and sad as the soldiers fight their own battles at home, often alone without support. It is extremely aggravating to watch. Bring tissues, or just do what I did and wipe your nose on your spouse’s sleeve. What is especially maddening is that when the soldiers find that they do need help, they are often offered only roadblocks in the form of uncaring leadership, administrative buffoons, pride, laziness, greed, etc. One side note. I worked with many people who work for the VA, who care deeply about soldiers and want to help. So what I am about to say is not for them. Close your ears. If you are working for the VA and you don’t give a fuck about soldiers, only your big fat salary and bennies then you can go fuck off somewhere else. Heroes need to help heroes. You don’t have to have been a soldier, but you do have to give a fuck. Go find some other government cubicle to hide in, you worthless fucks.
Offended? Don’t care. Moving on.
This movie dramatically shows for the viewer the kind of internal struggle many of our soldiers go through, and when I say soldier, I mean everyone who has served, Airmen, Marines, Sailors, Coasties, everybody. Suicide, mental illness, drug and alcohol addiction, paranoia, grief and survivor’s guilt, it all hits you in the gut with this movie. I won’t ruin the plot further, just go see it, and be prepared to cry.
But it isn’t enough to just go to a movie and have a good cry. This movie is a call to action. Based on the book of the same name by Pulitzer Prize winner David Finkel, it is the directing debut of Jason Hall. Brilliant acting by lead actors Miles Teller as Schumann and Haley Bennett as his loving wife Saskia. Comedian Amy Schumer has a dramatic supporting role as a grieving widow. Good job to all. Their storytelling is more than just entertainment, they do great service for soldiers who have seen action and are now struggling.
As I said before, it isn’t enough to watch a movie and cathartic cry, this show is a call to action. The VA failures are not just the failures of big government bureaucracy; it is the failure of us all because we don’t care enough to fix it. When is the last time you’ve called up the VA and asked them for a report on how they are serving the soldier? When have you called your local representative? If the answer is no, I have to ask why not? What is stopping you? Do it tomorrow, won’t you? See this movie tomorrow and then go call someone and get them to see it.
Traumatic stress disorder is no joke. We’ve been at this global war for 16 years, and there is no sigh of let up. We lost four special operators in Niger last week. I wonder if mainstream America will ever come to realize that the problem of global terrorism is not going away and that the problem with the VA and with soldier mental and physical health is not going away. Would you want your children to suffer?
I can’t say enough about this movie, but I have to wrap up. Rotten Tomatoes gives this movie a giant golden tomato, which is good for them. We agree for once. I guess a blind monkey can find a banana in the jungle, because they are often wrong. Good for them for getting it right for once.
Seth McFarlane and the cast of Fox comedy Star Trek Spoof, The Orville
By Jeremy Griffith
The American Millennium Online
Seth McFarlane is a funny man, and his new comedy Star Trek spoof, The Orville, is off to a great start. In episode three they tackle the very serious topic of same-sex relationships while plowing into the controversy of child sex reassignment. Funny! Are they going to address the controversial topic of sexual assault on an employee by a boss or supervisor next? Are they going to be able to make that funny?
I’m a fan of Star Trek, and I actually liked the first episodes of The Orville, but episode three “About A Girl” has left me scratching my head. This is in light of the new allegations of sexual assault and harassment by Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, who is a strong ally of the Clintons and Obamas.
In the episode, same-sex partners have a child, they laid an egg apparently, and it came out a girl. Not a problem under normal circumstances, but the species these two lovebirds belong to is predominantly only male. Females are frowned upon, only appearing once every 75 years or so, and are marginalized in their society. Babies born female are taken immediately to the doctor’s office and have their gender reassigned to the male. There is only one problem. The Orville is a Union ship and the doctor won’t perform the surgery for ethical reasons.
A ship is dispatched at the parents’ request from the homeworld and the baby girl is to go to that ship to have the surgery. Only Captain Ed, McFarlane’s character, is none too happy to release the child. He is duty-bound to “protect” the child, even though the culture of this child dictates that this surgery must be done. The Union officers intervein and there is a trial to determine whether or not the surgery should go forth. One of the parents, the second officer of the ship, actually has a change of heart and is willing to accept the child and not go through with the change.
All of this is terribly funny and sad at the same time. It makes one wonder about the priorities of Hollywood. They are willing to advance the topic of child transgender surgery, but are they willing to also go boldly into the realm of condemning sexual harassment of an employee by a boss? We doubt it.
We love Star Trek, we love this new series, but we wonder at the ever-changing morals of Hollywood and its writers. McFarlane himself is said to have written the script for this episode, and Brannon Braga, a Star Trek favorite who has directed many episodes, directed this one. Star Trek has always tackled tricky topics within the premise of their shows. Will they be reflexive enough to look at themselves in the mirror and talk about the topics within their own industry?
Apparently, the sexual deviance of Harvey Weinstein has been an inside secret in Hollywood for a long time. McFarlane jokes about it in a Hollywood award ceremony three years ago. You have to do more than make jokes, Seth, you have to take action. Your new wants to empower women. Great. How about talking about the real issue of sexual violence and harassment in the workplace! Try to make that funny! Just try!
In the real world, child transgender reassignment is not a laughing matter. Many of us are not opposed to same-sex unions as long as couples keep their relations to themselves. We libertarians don’t want to interfere with what happens in your bedroom. But what happens when same-sex parents try to change the gender of their adopted child? Is that abuse? We think it is. We doubt Hollywood agrees with us.
Will they agree that it is wrong for a rich, famous producer to sexually abuse women who want to work in the TV and film, using his power as a gatekeeper in the industry to get his way? Gauging the response of Hollywood to date, we doubt that the actors, filmmakers, producers, and writers will have much to say about how villains like Weinstein who take advantage of the young female stars they claim they want to empower.
Abu Tahseen, stalking ISIS in the Iraqi desert with a homemade weapon that looks like a Star Wars prop. The Silver Sniper, 63, was killed in Northern Iraq this week fighting terrorists.
A 63-year old veteran sniper has died in the service of his country, drawing interesting parallels between another sniper who in a single act of incomprehensible rage killed 59 of his fellow countrymen at an outdoor concert in Las Vegas. This is a tale of two snipers.
His name was Abu Tahseen, and he’s not a household name here in the United States, but he should be. He was known by his various nicknames: The Silver Sniper, the Sheik of Snipers, and Hawkeye. A veteran of five wars over many decades, the man was feared by his enemies, and his enemies, the latest ones, were the dreaded fighters of ISIS who ran rampages across Iraq and the Middle East causing fear and suffering wherever they went. Tahseen was not afraid of them and indeed, is credited with killing 341 of the vile terrorist, blasting them into oblivion with his bolt-action .50-caliber BMB sniper rifle. Tahseen is on record in video bragging that when his bullets struck their mark, the victim would be blasted backwards a meter or more by the sheer force of the impacting round.
Now ISIS has made a mess of the Middle East, has threatened everyone who doesn’t adhere to their extreme ideology, but The Silver Sniper, a devout Muslim, was not intimidated and was dedicated to destroying them, one at a time. On average, he is said to have sent four of those vile murders to their maker every day, and no one was safe within a mile of his rifle.
Sadly this hero has passed away, martyred in one last battle to free his country in the battle for the northern Iraqi city of Hawija. Terrorists have claimed credit for taking Tahseen down, but a blind monkey sometimes finds a banana in the jungle on occasion. Hopefully, others will rise to the occasion and fill the gap that Tahseen has left.
Songs should be sung of this hero. A blockbuster movie needs to be made, with a novelized tie-in. I look forward to that. In the meantime, read Taryn Tarrant-Cornish’s great article in Express here, and find out more about this remarkable man who stalked the desert with a homemade weapon that looked like it was a prop for the latest Star Wars movie.
Here in the United States the 24/7 news cycle knows nearly nothing about this great man, but is preoccupied with another gunman, I hesitate to call him a sniper, Stephan Paddock, 64. Paddock as you may have heard, occupied a hotel room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Hotel in Las Vegas and using several weapons modified to shoot near-fully automatic, rained deadly bullets onto unsuspecting concertgoers below. No motive has been found on why this wealthy gambler who made his money in real estate would do this horrible thing. He is not brave, or noble. He was a coward and died a coward’s death. When rough men armed with guns came to stop his horrible onslaught, he turned his gun on himself rather than be captured or killed by men braver than himself.
What is interesting about these two men, as different as night is from day, is their shared similarities. Both are senior citizens, both are known for what they did with a gun. But there the similarities end. Tahseen was a hero. At 63, when he should have been enjoying retirement, he went to the aid of his country, like Cincinnatus of Rome, he served when his country called and died the hero.
Paddock meanwhile had the kind of life many in this country only dream. He worked as a postal worker, an accountant, he worked for the IRS at one point, and he made his money in real estate. His father was a famous bank robber who at one point was on the FBI’s most wanted list, which might explain this man’s mental disconnect. He was a fixture at the hotels and casinos, spending large sums of cash at the tables. Then, inexplicably, this crazy decided he had had enough of the good life and without any other obvious motive, destroyed the lives of 59 innocent people and wounded over 500 more. Political and media pundits blame the guns and lax gun laws for this man’s actions, but we ask that we look at the man, not the tool.
Let’s compare and contrast these two men for a moment. Tahseen, a veteran with decades of experience, was a skilled rifleman. With his bolt-action .50 BMG he killed 341 people, animals really, in defense of his nation. Paddock tried to do as much, only his victims didn’t deserve it, had no idea it was coming, and were like fish in a barrel in his senseless onslaught, unable to shoot back or defend themselves in any way. We can see that in the hands of two very different men, a gun, a tool, can have very different results.
We recommend that Muslims, indeed anyone who admires skill and bravery, carve the name of Abu Tahseen on concrete and stonewalls in memorial of his bravery and achievements to liberate his countryman. For Paddock, list him on an historical footnote, and then immediately forget him, but don’t you dare forget his innocent victims!
Watch a recent interview with Tahseen below.
Here is a video showing the Silver Sniper’s accomplishments.
Following the horrible events of the mass shooting at Las Vegas Nevada, we turn to Licensed Clinical Social Worker Mike Arieta who is a longtime friend to offer some context.
The following audio podcast is part one of our conversation covering such issues as mental health and gun rights. Mike is the founder of New Path Counseling in Apple Vally Minnesota.
Stay tuned for part two of our conversation with Mike Arieta.
Mike talks at length about gun control on his own blog. We’ve included an excerpt of that blog below.
The issue of gun control has been an on-going situation over the years, but has gained increased attention due to recent events. Over the past few weeks there has been much attention given to tougher laws, increased mental health screenings and increased security. I want to take time to address the complicated issue of gun control from one social worker’s perspective and take the discussion on this issue in perhaps a different direction than where it has been going so far.
I want to point out a myth that this debate has brought out. A myth that has come out is that mass murders are committed by seriously mentally ill people. In an article by Michael B. Friedman that appeared in the January 17, 2013 edition of the Huffington Post, Friedman points out that people with mental illness are not likely to be violent and that acts of mass murder are carried out by some who are mentally ill, but these types of acts are also likely to be carried out by those who are not mentally ill. This is an important point to make because there have been calls for increased attention to those with mental illness. Does this mean that people who have identified themselves as having issues with mental health have limited rights? I am not talking about the right for a person with mental health issues to own a gun, but rather are persons with mental health issues going to be labeled violent and have their access limited to the community at large? This is a question that remains to be addressed in the debate.
Aside from the issue of mental health and gun use, I want to bring out a deeper discussion of why people may choose to use violence to deal with some situations. I have pondered this for some time and have wondered how much the role of shame has played in a person’s choice to use violence over other options. First, I need to define a key difference between shame and guilt. The word shame is defined per the Social Work Dictionary 5th edition (Baker 2003) as:
A painful feeling of having disgraced or dishonored oneself or those one cares about because of an intentional act, involuntary behavior or circumstance.
Guilt is defined per the Social Work Dictionary 5th edition (Baker 2003) as: An emotional reaction to the perceptions of having done something wrong, having failed to do something or violating important social norms.
When you look at these two definitions there is an important difference between the two states. Guilt is an emotional reaction to violating social norms and to put it simply says “I did something bad.” Shame on the other hand is a much deeper feeling in which a person internalizes feelings of negative self worth. Basically, shame says “I am a bad person.”
When I look at the incidents of mass violence and violence in general, I have wondered if the person or persons committing the violence have experienced shame in some way. My point is that if shame is left unattended and not dealt with, that a person may choose to use violence to deal with the feeling of being wronged or slighted by others. This choice may not be used for a few incidents, but over time if a person experiences many incidents of being wronged either by others, systems or even by themselves they may feel the only way around these intense feelings is to hurt others to feel vindicated. The other issue that is related to shame is power or the lack of it. When a person lacks the power to make changes to deal with the shame they have experienced they may choose violence as a way to achieve power.
For me the issue of gun control is more than banning guns or not, it is more about looking at why people choose to use violence in the first place. I believe that when the underlying issues of violence are addressed, you may see a reduction in all violence in general. I also believe that when a person is given the chance to be heard and they are able to get their story out, it goes a long way to reducing the feelings of shame and guilt that if left unchecked can lead to violence .
Brené Brown, Ph.D. has done some excellent work on vulnerability and work on shame. I have included a link to her work on shame. She addresses the issue of how shame impacts our lives. She has focused her work on listening to people’s stories and learning about what pain they have been through as well as what people have done to deal with these intense feelings. http://www.brenebrown.com/videos
When you get to the site, please click on the “listening to shame” video.
I have stated this in a previous post on new path notes that I believe it is very important for people of all ages to have a safe place and a safe person in which to share their hurts. I believe if a person is truly heard the feelings of shame and hurt can be reduced. I am speaking of all violence types not just those involving guns. When people start to deal with the feelings that are behind the violence, violence can be reduced. When people are given the chance to be heard they begin to heal. Please remember that there are people out there willing to listen to what is going on in your life. All you need to is start asking people to listen. I wish the best to you all!!
Mike Arieta is an Independent Clinical Social Worker (M.S.W., LICSW, LCSW), Mike holds a Master of Social Work from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities and a Bachelor of Social Work from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. Mike has also completed the PACC certificate for Permanency and Adoption Competency through the University of Minnesota. Mike is the creator of New Path Counseling.
